cassar.x

Some major realizations from working on 3 startups in the 0→1 stage: 1. You need to have strong beliefs loosely held. | New information is coming in all the time so you need to be ready to adapt, but commit with conviction as you learn.

Products should aim to be self-healing at this point. With AI integrated into the development process, startups can fully leverage TDD to build more resilient systems. Tests are no longer just validation. They become constraints, specs, and safety rails for modern development.

@fin465 guide

Now that we’re done at YCombinator, we’re revealing how we went from 0 → $10k MRR in our first 30 days, using only ONE channel (step by step). We spent less than $100 and didn’t have any paid ads, SEO, waitlist, or content marketing. Instead, we sent 50-75 highly targeted cold emails a day. Cold email is the most underrated channel because it's hard to get right, but if you figure it out you can sell ANY B2B product. Here's what we did from start to finish: STEP 1: Build an ultra‑specific customer profile at both company and person level. If you do this right, you can mess everything else up and still succeed. The goal here is to create such a perfect customer, that if they heard about your solution they would have no choice but to say "tell me more". Step 2: Build your list After you create this customer profile, find the companies that meet this criteria. Find 30–50 target companies on LinkedIn, then grab decision‑maker emails via Apollo/Wiza. STEP 3: Writing a killer email I used to run an outbound email agency and we'd send 50k+ emails/month to book b2b sales calls via cold email. Here are the basic principles of cold email writing that I always use: -Keep it 5-8 sentences. 70%+ of emails are read on mobile, so make sure they get most of it from that screen view. - Never write more than 2 sentences without breaking up the lines. People skim, and that’s the best way to keep their attention - DO NOT talk about your product’s features. - Instead, talk about the person, their company, and their pain points. STEP 4: The call I took 493 sales calls in Origami’s first 3 months. Here's what I learned: The 2 biggest goals for this call are - Figuring out the customer’s problems - Getting the customer excited about your solution Unless you already have PMF, it doesn't matter if you have a full built product. You still need to spend 90%+ of your time figuring out what the customer actually needs. In the early stages, you can even offer a full refund if they aren’t satisfied to give them maximum confidence and get your first few deals over the line. STEP 5: Closing/After Congrats! You cracked cold email. This was the exact approach we used at Origami to get our first $10k MRR, and the highest converting outbound approach I’ve seen when I ran my agency. I posted the stats in my prior tweets, but in our first 40 days we sent 3119 emails (~77 per day) and got a 5.3% response rate, resulting in demos with 64 founders at companies within our ICP. This resulted in ~$22k new MRR by the time our sales for all of these calls had closed. The best part is that once you nail this process, you can automate it. We've got our Origami AI Agents (@origamichat) finding new customers 24/7, which frees us up to explore new channels and focus on scaling. CONCLUSION This is a very short version of my guide. The full guide I posted on X last year (@fin465) hit 800k impressions and 10k+ bookmarks. If you want me to DM it you, comment GUIDE.

We’re entering an era of hyper growth; where more will be built, faster than ever before. All thanks to AI.

@lottsnomad time wasted

ok

@lottsnomad Apollo warmed up

100 emails a day starts now

@lottsnomad Dang. Sounds like projection

type of dms i get im very pro naming and shaming

This is the way.

@lottsnomad It all boils down to this. Get customers or die with pretty software.

80% of the features you build are just excuses to avoid the real work: getting customers

They stole his whole damn flow. Bar for bar.

Kanye really set the blueprint.

Momentum is key. You have to keep sending emails, writing code, and DMing people every day. It compounds.

@lottsnomad It allowed me to take on jobs/roles just to learn about an industry without thinking about pay/bills. Freedom to learn.

i resonate deeply with this too many founders who see exits as finish lines i see them more like intermissions what caught me off guard after my last exit was how quickly time lost texture days got quieter weeks blurred together nothing was pushing back i know that sounds like freedom but for me, it wasn’t building creates resistance and resistance gives days shape i’ve learned that rest isn’t the absence of work it’s the absence of meaning so i keep building it’s the fastest way I know to stay sharp, honest, and in motion exits might change the reason you build they don’t remove the need

Charging early is the best thing any founder can do to quickly validate. Stop convincing yourself not to charge. Invalidate quickly, or you're ultimately wasting your life.

@EdmondKachi2 It's all there is tbh.

@cjmcassar Facts. But it's easier said than done.

You may never belong to YC or any accelerator out there. You may just very well get rejected from every VC. You may lose all of your money and have to start over. Guess what? The only way forward is through the work.

@lottsnomad Love to see it

got into yc w26 last week closed a $200k deposit today yc doesnt start in jan it starts now and never finishes

@lottsnomad founder mode: Redemption

told yall about religious apps

@therealricoy Classic. He has 3 wives now or something.

if you werent around for this shut your mouth when youre talking to me about crypto

@lottsnomad 🫠

@cjmcassar more reason to hate the uk

bro huh? this legit makes no sense

One day while you're handling your 1,000,00th customer ticket you'll suddenly look back and realize you got there anyway. No TechCrunch article. No huge raise announcement. You still built something that makes someone's life better while getting rich.