The MicroConf Hub Page with links to all the notes for all the talks can be found here.

Most Memorable Quotes Of MicroConf 2013

I am a big fan of quotes and MicroConf 2013 delivered its fair share of those. So without further ado:

“It is my fault. I can’t even blame my employees, because I don’t have any” – Rob Walling

“Nobody wants to buy software. People want to buy outcomes: software is just a means to the end.” – Brennan Dunn

“Cash is king. Annual prepay is God.” – Jason Cohen

“You don’t want to be in a feature war with another product. You want something that can be finished.” – Jason Cohen

“Predictable acquisition of recurring revenue with annual prepay in a good market creates a cash machine.” – Jason Cohen

“The Iron Law of the market: Markets that don’t exist, don’t care how smart you are.” – Josh Kaufman

“It doesn’t matter how valuable the thing you created is if people don’t know you exist.” – Josh Kaufman

“Collecting email addresses is a next best step to taking money for validation: nobody who won’t give email will ever pay you. “ – Patrick McKenzie paraphrasing Josh Kaufman

“EVERY speaker at MicroConf is in B2B (that should tell you something)” – Jason Cohen

“If customers didn’t like long-form copy then people wouldn’t buy from them.” – Joanna Wiebe

“Copywriting 101: Replace WE with YOU” – Joanna Wiebe

“If a metric won’t change how you behave, it’s a bad metric.” – Ben Yoskovitz

“Discovering correlation lets you predict the future. Discovering causation lets you CHANGE the future.” – Ben Yoskovitz

“If you get featured on the App Store, it will change your life… for two weeks.” – Patrick Thompson

“I had a problem and decided to use Java to solve it.” “Now I have a ProblemFactory” – Rob Walling trying to silence the crowd

“Housekeeper is cheaper than therapist; Therapist is cheaper than divorce.” – Sherry Walling handing out actionable advice on business with a family

“Don’t internationalize until you max out English / your native market.” – Rob Walling

“You should increase your pricing based on the value your customer is receiving.” – Rob Walling

“If you’re in doubt, ask for credit card up front.” – Rob Walling

“The harder I work the luckier I get.” – Rob Walling

“Doing things that don’t scale — awesome idea at times” – Erica Douglass

“Free consultation/integration for any customer at $100+ a month is incredible sales and customer dev tool.” – Erica Douglass

“Being frugal doesn’t help you grow your business.” – Erica Douglass

“You are not your customer” – Erica Douglass

“Make your customers look good in the eyes of their customers” – Erica Douglass

“Be brave. Charge more + deliver experience to match. Do what others can’t /won’t. Do what doesn’t scale at the start.” – Erica Douglass

“Lesson 1: never give money to an SEO guy.” – Dave Collins as he takes $20 from attendee

“Dont write content for Google, write content for visitors.” – Dave Collins

“Customer Development: If you ask questions in the wrong way, you get bad data that leads you in the wrong direction.” – Hiten Shah

“How you get to the customer is as important, if not more, than what you get to the customer” – Hiten Shah

“Hypothesis Framework:
Our hypothesis is that a (certain type of person) have a problem doing (certain type of task).” – Hiten Shah

“The more I help you, the more you will trust me.” – Nathan Barry

“Sales is a learned skill and a process. Always iterate on your sales pitch.” – Mike Taber

“First impressions will dominate regardless of how often it is contradicted by new experiences.” – Mike Taber

“People don’t buy software, they buy solutions to problems.” – Mike Taber

“Experience might be the best teacher, but the tuition rates are really high” – Mike Taber

“Teaching is the best form of marketing. Only sell to a market you have something to teach.” – Nathan Barry

“It’s not customer validation until you have their credit card” – Nathan Barry

“By increasing trust and lowering friction, it increases the odds that somebody becomes a customer.” – Brennan Dunn

“The way to establish trust is to over-deliver value.” – Brennan Dunn

“When somebody is trying to sell you something, you look for any excuse to bail.” – Brennan Dunn

“Everybody should go home and implement an email mini-course.” – Unknown; from twitter via Patrick McKenzie

“You may go through 4 or 5 accountants [before you find a good one]. That’s normal” – Cameron Keng

“Income is one thing. Taking 3 months off for your wedding and not losing income is something else entirely.” – Patrick McKenzie

“Lifetime email sequences after customer relationship starts can dramatically increase retention” – Patrick McKenzie

“if you’re providing monetary value to your customer, email them regularly. Remind them in dollars. Get them promoted” – Patrick McKenzie

-Christoph