A milestone flew past me in a whirlwind of experimental entrepreneurship: the first $1M in total revenue.

This company is the 3rd one I’ve started, but the first to make it this far. It took 3.5 years with my team of 3 full-time people.

~1,000 customers made this possible. Tremendous gratitude to each of you! ❤️‍🔥

I found a few hours to reflect. Here are 21 lessons from making $1M (also in thread format here):
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1. Become the go-to guy for something.
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2. Economic turbulence doesn’t change the amount of money you can potentially earn. It does change the hands from which you can earn it.
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3. Customers want to buy things that make them feel good. Maybe you make your customers feel relieved, smart, trendy, or elite. The point is: customers buy feelings, not products. 🍿🧃So, make sure their experience measures up. Keep your promises.
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4. Writing is valuable, even now. Expertise in writing is valued.
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5. Stories sell. In fact I’m convinced it’s impossible to sell WITHOUT stories. The truer the story, the better. It doesn’t matter if it’s mundane. People yearn for something true.
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6. Be easy to work with. The easier it is to work with you, the easier your work will be. This value is worth upholding both internally (with your team) and externally (with customers, contractors, and suppliers). Hat tip to Jackson for the phrase "be easy to work with," now one of my core values.
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7. A woman can be a good leader without being an insufferable girlboss. 👍
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8. Selling products is one activity, and selling services is another. But you can learn things from each of those activities that can make you better at the other.
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9. It takes a team. There’s no such thing as a one-man show.
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10. Great entrepreneurs are not only deeply resilient, but also unreasonably committed. I’ve had the privilege of working with dozens of them on their writing. They all match this description.
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11. You win by genuinely wanting to help your customers, and by being competent.
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12. If people are desperate for what you’re offering, they will go down all kinds of rabbit holes and jump through crazy hoops to find you. The more clarity and legibility you can manage, the more you can enjoy this pattern.
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13. There are endless problems to be solved. Solve one that matters.
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14. As an entrepreneur, you have a drive toward action, and you have a drive toward perfection. They complement each other, but they also come into conflict. You can’t allow one to eliminate the other. You have to find a way to balance both of those drives.
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15. If you have a good team, you can depend on them—and also, they’ll never stop surprising you in good ways.
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16. You can always afford the upside. (Hat tip: financial advisor Taylor Stewart)
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17. Every growing company has two parts: Everest and Base Camp. Everest is the aspiration; Base Camp keeps the lights on. (Hat tip: Adam Draper and Vinod Khosla for teaching me this metaphor)
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18. There’s a good reason some things are still being done in dumb old-fashioned ways. There’s also a good reason to change how some things are done. Some changes are worth making, and some aren’t.
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19. Being uncompromising can make people trust you less. Be careful in this regard.
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20. Some of the best entrepreneurs are creative and intuitive—the kind of people who win battles without fighting. But many equally great entrepreneurs are built of flawless discipline, organization, and willingness to work.
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21. 9 out of 10 successful entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs. The first company is almost never a success, but they still try again.

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