Day 9 of 14 at Launchpad. We’ve entered the next stage of the competition: scaling revenue. To date, 20+ out of 30 teams have made their first revenue using direct sales. The purpose of that phase was to use the discomfort of selling direct to prove real customer demand. Phase 2 is about taking that knowledge and packaging it into a mass-market offer through social media. Success now means multiplying sales using early customer validation. The goal is seeing multiple companies cross $5K MRR to build the foundation of a durable business. Expecting a lot of creative ideas and brilliant marketing over the next 2 days 🎯

Very grateful that I get to help Founders build and scale their products through Launchpad. So far, the teams have made immense progress not just about their product but as Founders as well. Building in public helped me scale Stan from $0 -> $40M ARR and it is incredibly fulfilling to be able to share that same playbook with this group.

Day 7 of 14 at Launchpad. We’re witnessing the beginning of the “New-Age Founder” era. 16 of the 30 teams that started Launchpad have now made revenue. For the longest time, the path to entrepreneurship was hidden from most people. It favored a very particular type of person: Hate the system. Drop out of school. Move to SF. Chase venture capital. Settle for a 1% chance of success. The New-Age Founder takes a completely different path. Instead of chasing a hot tech idea, they lean into the expertise they’ve spent years building in their careers. Instead of venture capital, they use social capital, the audience they’ve built online. Then they turn that audience into a business, with a product or service that today’s technology makes easier to build than ever. They understand that building is easy and distribution is hard. So they start with distribution. Millions of New-Age Founders will enter the ecosystem over the next 5 years. Running the Stan Launchpad playbook.

Day 6 of 14 at Launchpad. The sales playbook I taught our founders has already made them $10,000+ combined. A 30-minute call in 5 steps: 1/ Rapport (first 5 minutes). Small talk. Get them comfortable. 2/ Discovery. What are they trying to achieve? 3/ Demo. They use your product while you watch. You don't drive. 4/ Pricing psychology. Ask: "How much would you pay for this?" 5/ The magic line (read on) Steps 4 and 5 are where almost everyone fails. They just don't do it 🤦‍♂️ A customer says: "This is great. I'd definitely pay for this." They get the dopamine hit and go back to tinkering on their product. Deep down, they don't believe they deserve to get paid. I told them to flip it and ask for payment, no matter what. The very next day, sales started showing up on the leaderboard. One of the teams ran up to me and said: "Vitalii, I can't believe this. I did what you said, and it worked." If everyone leaves Launchpad with one lesson, it has to be this: End every sales call with one simple line: "Would you like to become one of our first paying customers?" And have a Stripe link ready ✅

Day 5 of 14 at Launchpad. Of the 10 teams we eliminated, 3 have already made their first sale. My biggest fear going into Launchpad was that people wouldn't succeed. Instead, the very people we thought wouldn't make it found a way to break through. Your first revenue is one of the most defining moments as an entrepreneur. It's proof that someone is willing to pay for what you've poured your heart and soul into. That single signal often decides whether a founder keeps going or gives up. Seeing eliminated founders succeed is a reminder for everyone here: No one but you gets to tell you what you can and can't do. Only you decide how far you'll go. And the only person you need to prove that to is yourself.

Day 4 of 14 at Launchpad. Yesterday we sent 10 of the 30 teams home. I still remember looking each founder in the eye as they walked up to us and we told them: "You've been eliminated. Please throw your plaque in the fire." Some of them teared up. They're some of the most talented people I've met, and many crossed continents to be here. One team refused. They left their plaque by the fire and said, "You made the decision. You burn it." So I picked it up and did it for them. Making decisions is one of the hardest parts of leading. The further I get, the more weight each one carries. Yesterday I made 10 consequential decisions in 5 hours. Every one of them landed on a talented person's sense of self-worth. Who am I to do that? I don't have a good answer. I only know the decision had to be made by someone. Every founder at Launchpad needs to take two ideas to heart: 1/ No one but you decides what you can and can't do. Rejection is part of the process. You choose how far you'll go. That's what being a founder is. 2/ We live in the era of founder-led distribution. If you can't tell your story, you will be eliminated.

Day 3 of 14 at Launchpad. Yesterday I went fishing with Daymond John. We didn't catch any fish. But I came home with two ideas I'm now thinking about. 1/ Stay lean, even when you don't have to. Daymond is a multimillionaire, and he still keeps his company under 50 people. We made the same bet at Stan. We chose not to scale through headcount, and that's a big reason we passed $30M ARR in under 3 years. Headcount is a vanity metric. Your business grows with the quality of your team's ideas, not with the number of people in the room. 2/ Hire for raw talent, not résumés. Most of Daymond's team, senior people included, started as interns. His view is that an internship answers one question: can this person create value here? Business changes constantly, so people have to learn as they go. He values raw ability over credentials. We hire the same way. A good number of Stan's senior engineers joined us straight out of school. Years of experience don't prove talent. Ability does. First principles over checklists. What a day!

Everyone (yes you) will eventually become a Creator. @Brycent and I talked about: - Why I believe that - How were thinking of building Stan around it - And the ecosystem for the next generation of Creators Follow along for more from #StanLaunchpad#