Hundred

There is something that feels very satisfying, complete, and whole about the number 100. Take getting a 100 on a test. It is the mark of a perfect score. While I got very few of these scores during my schools years, I appreciated seeing a 100 scrawled on top of my tests on those rare occasions.

The number 100 is also an important life milestone, like living to one hundred years old. As of the most recent statistics, there are nearly 750,000 centenarians globally and over 95,119 in Japan alone. Interesting fact, the United States has nearly has many centenarians, but with three times the population.

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the first politicians to place greater emphasis on the first 100 days in office. His goal was to quickly restore confidence to Americans struggling through the Great Depression and weary of a banking system that was imploding. Roosevelt managed to get 15 major bills passed, urge Congress to pass 77 laws, and signed 99 executive orders in his first 100 days.

Since Roosevelt, other US presidents have made it a goal to move swiftly during their first 100 days. This has led many leaders in the private sector to also usher in big changes and initiatives during the first 100 days in their new role. This gives leaders enough time to show results over one fiscal quarter plus a few days.

As I closed in on the 100th edition of this newsletter, I have been thinking about the significance of this effort. Since launching in May 2023, I have been posting weekly updates for two straight years. What was merely an experiment to create an authentic AWS newsletter for startups grew to be much more.

I questioned whether to continue the newsletter after leaving AWS. It no longer had the same purpose or importance now that I am a startup founder again. I am not trying to promote AWS or be an advocate to support startup founders that are building and launching their startups in the cloud.

Four things kept me going. First, I still had ideas that I wanted to explore especially as I transitioned from working at AWS to startup founder again and exploring more startup ecosystems. Second, it was a good way to share some major life updates like leaving AWS and moving to Taiwan across the my large network. Third, the forcing function of writing regularly helps me to think deeply and clarify my thoughts. Lastly, I am a sucker for consistency, and being so close to publishing a hundred editions was too tempting.

Now that I am here (well, technically the 101^st edition if I include the launch post), it is time for some changes. When I had sent out the fiftieth edition, I was at AWS focused on helping startups worldwide. The newsletter was part of my monthly KPIs and also a convenient way to let folks know where I was heading next. I had plans to include more external contributors and dig into more AI and technical topics.

How did I do? I had two excellent contributions; one by Shannon Burch of Neo Financial on startup customer support, and one by Peter Bell on the journey of startup CTOs. I had a lot of input on my ecosystem posts for Vietnam (my most popular post) and Malaysia. I also posted a few articles digging into AI, but mostly from the AWS perspective. As for the deeper technical topics, I never did get a chance to write those given my time and travel constraints.

While I did not hit all my goals, readership and subscribers continued to grow. Compared to the first fifty editions, the LinkedIn newsletter impressions increased 49%, views by 25%, engagement by 42%, and reach by a whopping 255%. Opens, reads, and click-thru rates remained steady over the email distribution. Growth slowed as I focused less on acquisition, but still grew 30% from 5,614 to 7,281 subscribers on the LinkedIn side.

For all the positive momentum and quality content though, this newsletter no longer serves its intended purpose. More importantly, it no longer serves me and my objectives as I focus more heavily on my startup. I never intended to monetize the newsletter, nor does it work as a content channel to support my startup, which is focused on measuring the business impact of community for large organizations.

Abandoning this body of work does not make a lot of sense either. There is still plenty of potential topics to write about, especially as I pick up new insights and continue to learn more along my founder journey. One area that I am particularly interested in sharing more about is using AI in all aspects of my startup, from designing and building product to automating and streamlining my work. As a solo founder that is bootstrapping, I also think there are unique perspectives that might be worth sharing.

For the third act of Founders in the Cloud, I am making changes so the newsletter is more manageable. First, the content will focus on my journey as a founder and insights that would be useful for other founders. Second, I will not publish weekly, instead opting to post when I have something useful and timely to share. Third, I will not publish through LinkedIn and Beehiiv, but will consolidate on Substack. Beehiiv is expensive for the number of subscribers to the newsletter, and relying on LinkedIn means being limited by the whims of their algorithm. Substack is free and I would have a direct connection to my readers via email. I will still share on LinkedIn, but the full content will live on Substack.

In the transition, I am migrating both LinkedIn and Beehiiv subscribers. If you see an email from “Mark Birch at Founders in the Cloud”, that is this newsletter on Substack. The newsletter website domain will be www.foundersinthecloud.com. Note that because LinkedIn does not provide emails of subscribers, I used a tool to grab/guess emails. That means some of you may not be added as a subscriber, but I will provide reminders on LinkedIn on how to subscribe to my Substack list.

Last thing, as great as LinkedIn has been in providing visibility for the newsletter, some posts sadly got little attention. These posts were unloved, but still deserving of an audience by virtue of having practical strategies and tactics for founders. So I am reposting them below with a brief synopsis. Please check them out, and if you find them valuable, please like them and add a comment over on LinkedIn.

I want to sincerely thank you for being a loyal reader and supporter of this newsletter and my work. I heard from many people sharing how they valued my writing and how it helped them better navigate challenges in their startups. If there are specific examples how this newsletter has helped you, please let me know!

Mark Birch

Why – I explore finding your startup's purpose through four key questions: small why (initial spark), what (solution), who (target audience), and big why (broader impact). Using the Enterprise Sales Forum as an example (a global community I founded), I show how your "why" evolves through customer conversations and product experiments rather than having it sorted out from the start.

Pirates – Small teams of talented misfits always innovate much faster than large conforming teams, something seen at Lockheed's Skunk Works and Apple's Macintosh teams. I highlight five hiring traits those iconic teams practiced: breadth of experience, lateral thinking, creation history, comfort with uncertainty, and learning ability. Small "one-pizza teams" of 3-5 people maintain the communication efficiency and decision speed that larger teams lose.

3 Steps to a Better Pitch – I share three elements for compelling startup pitches: create drama through tension and contrasts, engage visually with creative design over bullet-heavy slides, and bring passion to avoid boring delivery. Drawing from personal pitching failures and successes, I emphasize that audiences remember feelings and stories more than facts and figures.

Unreasonable – Startup success requires an "unreasonable" obsession with detail, like world-class chefs pursuing perfection that others consider excessive. I explore how founders must stay deeply involved in product details while building cultures that balance autonomy with high standards through respectful conflict, honesty, and blameless innovation.

LinkedIn – I provide strategies for using LinkedIn effectively despite its current state of spam and superficial content. I offer tips for cleaning up profiles, crafting professional stories, curating valuable networks, and creating meaningful content while avoiding automated tools and focusing on authentic relationship-building over connection collecting.

The Startup Founder Test – I present 39 critical questions entrepreneurs should ask before launching, covering personal readiness, industry knowledge, financial preparation, and team-building. I emphasize that successful founders are calculated risk evaluators requiring deep self-awareness, from understanding motivations to having access to customers and handling uncertainty.

Scaling Globally – Drawing from my Stack Overflow Asia experience, I outline twelve questions for international expansion, emphasizing it's like starting another company with new complexities. I cover market entry strategies, building local credibility, understanding pull from international customers, and investing significant time on the ground in the target markets.

Every Second Counts – I explore time management for founders, comparing it to top professional kitchens where precision matters. While founders must maintain shark-like momentum, they also need to prioritize intentionally, focusing on activities aligned with the single most important objective for startup survival rather than trying to do everything.

Brevity – I advocate for concise communication in startup environments where leaders often face information overload. I share four principles: set context upfront, put important information first, establish clear next actions, and remove unnecessary words. Effective communication requires understanding the recipient's perspective and time constraints.

Your MVP Sucks and It's OK – I address how first product versions inevitably disappoint because they're built on assumptions rather than validated needs. Explaining Reid Hoffman's quote about being "embarrassed" by your first product, I emphasize the goal is speed to market and feedback loops, then continuously iterating to sand down the sharp edges.

Along with the changes in the content direction, newsletter platform, and frequency of posts, this section of the newsletter will also change. All event information (both past and upcoming) will be shared as posts on LinkedIn first, then compiled at the bottom of the newsletter as links to those posts. This will decrease the duplicative work of posting similar content in two places.

A more important reason why this section is changing is that I plan to attend fewer events, travel less frequently, and participate in other’s content channels. Over time that may change depending on the progress I make with my startup, the importance of a particular event in furthering my goals, or value of a content platform for spreading the word about my startup and book. For the time being though, I will be focused on two things: building and selling. Those are really the only things that move the needle for any early-stage startup.