I Built Startups for 10 Years.
Here's What Actually Works.

Most founders think they need to get more customers all the time to make more money. So they run ads, send cold emails, whatever.

Thing is, that’s not the best way to make more money.

Don’t get more customers.
Upgrade the ones you already have.

And you know the problem. Most free users never upgrade.
You send them an email, "Dear user, you can upgrade to Pro right here".
But they never upgrade.

So, here’s what works instead: It’s called reverse trial.

A founder in my mastermind showed me this trick.
He runs a startup that helps agencies create reports from Meta and Google Ads in one dashboard. And this is how he set it up:

Everyone who signs up gets everything. Every feature, no limits, for 14 days.
And I’m talking about the pro stuff - like reports that go out to the agency’s clients automatically.

And right before day 14, he sends an email and tells people they’re about to be downgraded to the free plan. So, people either stay on the Pro plan and pay, or they drop to free - and lose some of the features.

Sounds like a small change when you compare it to telling people to upgrade. But it makes a huge difference.

His paid conversion rate went from 2% to 8% in one month.

Because people feel a loss way more than they feel a win.
Losing €10 hurts more than winning €10 feels good.
It's called loss aversion.

Imagine you’re the agency owner. In week one you connect a client, and the report lands in your client’s inbox and you don’t have to do anything.
By day 14 you’re used to it. And you’re not asking yourself if Pro is worth it. You already know it, because you’ve been using it.

Now, two things are important in your email - because otherwise this doesn’t work. First, when you send this email, you need to be specific.
Don’t just say "Your trial is ending". Tell them exactly what they’re about to lose - the big pro feature they actually used.

Second, your free plan still has to be worth keeping.
Otherwise, they leave instead of paying.

So, look at your setup right now. Can people try your product for free and after a couple of days you just send an upgrade email?

Try flipping that.

Give people 14 days of the Pro plan for free when they sign up and then downgrade them.

This is probably the biggest mistake I made in my second startup.
Cost me €2K and 6 months.

So, I was building my second startup, Power of Giving, a simple app where you can donate to charitable organizations. And for months I was just building features, you know, to make the app even better.
A preferences page, filters, favorites - all that stuff.

And then one day I opened my analytics just to check how things are going. And I was shocked.

Nobody used them.
And I mean literally - nobody.

So, I talked to a couple of users and they said, "Well, I just don’t need those features."

Big oof. Back to the drawing board.

So I asked myself, what do people actually want to do here?
They come to donate. That’s it.

So, instead of adding more useless features, I did something different.
I wrote down how many clicks it takes a user to go from opening the app to donating.

Five clicks, ok.

Then, for each screen, I just asked myself, do I really need this one?
In the end, I cut three of them. And I just published it again.

Within 2 weeks I had more donations, and people stuck around.
And all because they could do what they came for right away.

Users don’t leave because you’re missing a feature.
They leave because your product takes too long to solve their problem.

So do this today:

Before you build another feature, look at your current flow.
Like, how long does it take people to get what they came for?
How many clicks?

Then cut everything that doesn’t help people get there.

Be honest. Do you know your conversion rate right now?
Because I didn’t.

When I started, I literally tracked nothing.
I just did what I thought was right.

Rewriting the text on my website, changing the images, whatever.
And then I waited and hoped someone would buy my stuff.

Yeah, not the best strategy, I know.

But then I found something. The AARRR Framework.
It’s a framework a lot of startups use, and basically it works like this.
It splits your customer lifecycle into five stages.
And for each stage, you measure one specific number.

That’s it. Five numbers.

When I started, I didn’t want to make it too complicated, so I started with one. The conversion rate on my website. Like, how many visitors actually buy. That’s it. And I checked it weekly.

Then I added another one: How many people reach the wow moment -
the point where they actually see what my product does for them.

Then I added a third one: How many people recommended my product.

And here’s where it gets interesting. When I checked the numbers, I noticed that most people never reached the moment where they saw what my product was actually doing. So, they left almost immediately.

That was mind-blowing to me.

It wasn’t that people didn’t sign up.
They just stopped using it after 2 days.

And you don’t need the full framework to find that out.
Start with three numbers. Measure them each Monday, and compare them to last week. And then find the weakest one and work only on that.

If you want the full framework on one page, so you know exactly what to measure and how to improve your numbers, here’s a quick cheat sheet I made for you.

You can download it right here:

Have you seen PhotoCraft?

Someone built a free Photoshop clone. In a few weeks. Mostly with AI.
And I mean Photoshop, you know, one of the biggest software products out there. It just got copied.

So, think about what that means for your startup.
If someone can copy that in a few weeks, they can copy your product too.

It’s scary, not gonna lie.
Software alone doesn’t do the trick any more.

But let’s look at the positive side of it.
You have a chance to improve your product in a way that gives people a reason to stay. You just have to build something AI can’t copy.

Let’s do a quick exercise:

Imagine a competitor clones your product next month.
Same features, lower price. Why would your customers still come to you? Write that down. And if your answer is "Nothing", that’s a problem.
And you need to fix that right now.

But what can’t be copied?

For example, real support. Like, a call or a chat when someone has a question, and a real person actually answers. Not a bot. A person.

Or a community where people can chat with other people.
A friend of mine built an app where you can check water levels, for canoeists. Here, a community where people can talk about their experiences could make sense.

So, think about what makes sense for your startup, and build that.
It’s what keeps people around, even when a cheaper copy shows up.

But there is also another thing AI can’t copy.
And that’s probably your biggest advantage.

So, I recently looked at my last 30 sales.
And I learned something crazy.

95% of the people who bought my stuff already knew me in some way. 95%. Like, they found me on LinkedIn, or they watched my YouTube videos.

And I hear the same thing all the time:
"Oskar, I really like your content. I love what you do".

Those people buy. Cold traffic doesn’t do that.
If I just ran some ads, it probably wouldn’t work.
Because there is one thing missing.

Trust.

I mean, think about it - someone lands on your website but has never heard of you before. How would they know they can believe you? Well, they don’t.

Check this out: Alex Hormozi has 5.2 million followers on Instagram.
His company - Acquisition.com - has 32K. People trust people.
It’s you and the simple question: Do people like and trust you?

So, what do you do?

You connect with people. Tell your story on social media. Like, what are you building, why are you building it, and what went wrong along the way.

Just pick one platform, write a post and then just hit post.
AI can’t copy you. It can’t copy who you are, and your experience.
That’s even more important than ever before.

These are the 5 top things I learned building startups for 10 years.
Now, don’t try to do everything at the same time.
Pick just one thing you learned today - and start it today.

Now, if you want help building your startup - check out my startup mastermind.

You will get pesonal coaching from me plus you can talk to other founders to see what worked for them.

You can join right here: