I am working on a project for my university, and i have a task to move results from queries to show on powerpoint, but I can not find a way to do so, please help!!

Hey all, my fiancée is incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of me investing my money into BTC instead of traditional stocks. What reputable sources can you guys provide to help me win her over in PowerPoint form! Thanks!

Say for example I have this table: https://imgur.com/PO7Mw9y
How can I make it so that when I double click on the header "verb", it filters the table to show only the rows that contains X in that header's column. And when I double click on the header again the filters gets removed, and if I clicked on another header while the table is already filtered, it gets removed first before filtering it.
I used this VBA code:

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean) If Not Application.Intersect(Target, Range("A1:D1")) Is Nothing Then Cancel = True If Me.AutoFilterMode Then Me.AutoFilterMode = False Else Me.Range("A1:D1").AutoFilter Field:=Target.Column, Criteria1:="X" End If End If End Sub 

It works, however it doesn't remove the filter when I double click on the same header again, and it doesn't remove previous filters before filtering another column.
Any help would be much appreciated!

I can help you streamline your business operations and achieve your goals without worrying about time-consuming administrative work.
My Experience
I have worked with various companies in different industries and have gained expertise in a wide range of skills, including:
VA to CEO in an IoT Agency

• Manage all admin tasks, reporting
• Create reports and consolidate summaries
• Manage emails and respond to inquiries
• Recruit developers

VA to Marketing Manager

• Lead generation
• Data scraping and mining
• Cold emailing

Technical Recruiter

• End-to-end outsourcing process
• Job posting, screening, initial interviews, and recommendations

VA to HR Manager

• Hubstaff management (check hours and activity of each employee)
• Recruit for different roles

Communication Tools
I am proficient in various communication tools, including:

• Gmail
• Slack
• Outlook
• Discord
• Zoom
• Meet

Office Tools
I am also experienced in using different office tools, including:

• Google Workspace (Drive, Calendar)
• Microsoft Excel and Docs
• Google Docs
• Google Sheets (including basic formulas)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (Mac/Windows)

For example, if I were to sign 'I need some help,' would the sign for help be the same as if I were signing 'help me?' This has been bothering me for a while now, since it feels like the sort of thing I would brush off and then need to know later.

In just over a decade Canva went from creating yearbooks for Australian high schools to over 135M users and a $40B valuation.
Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht (now husband and wife) founded Fusion Books in 2007 allowing Australian students to design their school yearbooks.
A few years later, they were the biggest supplier of yearbooks in Australia. And the foundations of Canva were put in place.
Then in 2013, the couple along with technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, launched Canva to a 50k-person waiting list.
Along with their mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere - the team had two ambitious goals in building Canva:

1. Build one of the world’s most valuable companies. 💵
2. To do the most good they can do. 🌱

Safe to say they achieved both. And in doing so, Canva has become one of the biggest success stories of the last decade - especially from a non-USA startup.
This is the story of how Canva went from Zero to One. 🚀 Click here to read the full deep dive.

Business model: How Canva makes money

Canva’s business model is simple - but slightly different from a typical SaaS.
Usually, SaaS businesses choose between Freemium and Free Trial (among others) to convert users to monetization.
But Canva uses both.
They have an awesome Free Plan that is sufficient for (probably) most people.
Then they have three paid plans: Canva Pro, Canva Teams, and Enterprise.
All of these offer more business features such as brand kits and more specialized features such as their background remover. With Enterprise offering a more tailored experience for companies that will have over 100 users.
And then lastly, although not making money, Canva also offers free premium features for educators and NPOs - in line with them doing good!

Canva’s Growth

Canva launched in 2013. But the idea for it started years before.
Melanie and her then-boyfriend Cliff were studying together at the University of Western Australia.
Melissa was studying Psychology and Commerce but was so passionate about design that she taught design programs to other students.
This is where she realized there was a problem.
It would take her students hours to learn the basics of the design tools on the market and the whole semester to become proficient.
A problem she felt was so obvious and needing to be filled that she dropped out of university to pursue it.
To build up some business acumen and money, as well as to test her hypothesis, she and Cliff started Fusion Books - a customizable yearbook tool for high school students in Australia.
Essentially an extremely niche testing ground for Canva.
The idea was a hit. It became the largest yearbook supplier in Australia and still runs profitably today.
This prompted them to go all-in on Canva.
They found a technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, to build the platform and raised $3M in Seed funding.
And so the journey began.
Canva built hype for their launch by creating a public waitlist - which reached 50k people by the time of launch in 2013.
By the end of 2014, Canva already had over 100k users, launched their iPad app, and had ~2M designs created on the platform.
In 2015, Canva launched Canva for Work (now Canva Pro), reached 50 Canvanauts (employees), surpassed 50M designs created, and reached a valuation of $165M.
In 2017 Canva became profitable and launched a bunch of new features and products, including animations, Canva Print, their Android app, and launched in 100 languages.
Canva became a Unicorn in 2018 with their $40M investment round. And made their first acquisition, buying Zeetings to double down on presentations. They also hit 1B designs.
Their acquisitions and new products continued and by the end of 2021, Canva had over 75M MAUs and was valued at $40B after raising an additional $200M.
As of now, Canva has over 135M MAUs, over 4,000 Canvanauts, and more than 15B designs in the last decade - over 200 new designs created per second.

Key Success Factors (KSFs)

There have been so many reasons for Canva’s rocketship success. Here are four that stood out to me, particularly for Canva’s earlier stages of growth:
🌍 1. Solved a BIG, Painful Problem
It seems a bit ridiculous that it took so long for a tool like Canva to exist.
And that’s exactly how Melanie felt, saying that the problem felt so obvious she feared someone else would beat her to it if she didn’t move fast enough.
But hindsight is always 20/20.
Back in the 2000s it probably seemed even more ridiculous that non-designers would need a tool for design.
But luckily for us, Melanie realized this counterintuitive nature of design tools from teaching design programs at university.
Her students struggled to learn the basics.
It took them entire semesters to proficiently learn a new tool.
Plus, for just about everything you wanted to create you needed another tool - which also took a semester to learn.
Think about Canva today - graphics, animations, videos, presentations, documents, graphs and visualizations, and more.
Before Canva you needed: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Powerpoint, Word, Excel, plus a whole bunch more.
Now I’m not suggesting that Canva does any one of these as well as the specialized tool - but it doesn’t need to - nor is it trying to.
Canva wants to be a suite of design tools hosted on one web-based platform. Giving you easier-to-use tools, simple templates, and more ways to collaborate.
Before Canva, this didn’t exist. Before Canva non-designers generally felt hopeless.
Before Canva even launched they had 50k people on their waitlist - this idea was going to be huge!
Now Canva has over 135M MAUs, in over 190 countries, and over 100 languages.
It’s often better to solve a deeply painful problem for a small group of people, than a meh problem for a large group of people.
Well… Canva does both.
Canva solves a deeply painful problem for a MASSIVE group of people.
👶 2. Simplified Everything
Most often, the best solutions are the simplest.
And Canva is a great example.
Canva is the simplest solution.
Canva creates what I like to call a Simplicity Flywheel. Canva is simple to:

• Find 🕵️
• Get started 🌟
• Use 🧰
• Share 📢

Simple to find 🕵️
Google something like “how to design a logo” and guess what pops up on the first page?
Canva.
Try something like “how to choose brand colors”.
Canva.
Okay one more, Google “how to make a YouTube thumbnail”.
Two videos of some guy telling me I can make free thumbnails that convert? Huh?
Oh wait - guess what platform he uses?
Canva.
With the Canva thumbnail tutorial right underneath it by the way!
Canva has done an excellent job with content marketing - popping up on the first page for just about every use case imaginable, but more on this later.
Simple to get started 🌟
Canva has spent countless hours perfecting its onboarding process.
They identified that it wasn’t only the complexity of tools they needed to solve for, but also people’s confidence to design.
This is why they have structured their onboarding to get you to complete a design in a few minutes. If you don’t do it straight away, they make sure to remind you via email.
You get to see how quick and easy the platform is to use. And you make a cool design.
An instant confidence boost.
Canva also provides a ton of content on how to use their platform, how to achieve certain jobs (designs), and how to design better - making their users even more confident in getting started.
You may have noticed a common theme of content here - I promise its section is coming.
Simple to use 🧰
The core feature of Canva.
Create beautiful designs, without all the fuss of a highly technical tool like Photoshop.
It's simple to use - for everybody.
Canva has become their vision of an all-in-one design platform, where anyone can bring their creative visions to life.
No steep learning curves.
No need for more tools.
Simple to share 📢
One of the most critical parts of the flywheel is how simple Canva is to share.
Canva achieves this in a few ways.
The Canva Simplicity Flywheel then starts again.
🪴 3. Created Valuable Content
“The best marketing is education” - Regis McKenna, the key person behind marketing the first Apple Computer.
Canva is a prime example of this quote.
All of their content is made to help users create better designs - specifically on Canva.
Canva now dominates SEO by providing valuable content to their (potential) users.
In fact, Canva didn’t do any paid advertising until after 10M MAUs.
I’ve teased this part of the deep dive for a while now. So I guess I better deliver. Although Canva’s content strategy has been so incredible, I would have to actually try to not let it deliver value to you.
Strategy 🎯
Canva takes a wide-scope, but targeted, actionable approach to their content marketing.
Their key driver for content is creating value-adding pieces that help their users build up their design skills and get the most value out of Canva.
In fact, Canva launched with over one million templates, elements, and fonts.
This removes the friction to design - back to the simplicity.
How 📜
Canva does this by using a jobs-to-be-done intent strategy, i.e., solutions to tasks such as “how to create a LinkedIn carousel”.
They create for super-specific use cases.
But they create for all the use cases. And I mean ALL (the wide-scope part of their strategy).
Canva has six different blogs on just Wedding Photography - and how Canva can fit into it.
I mentioned above how Canva dominates Google searches. This is because they have just put out thousands of high-quality blog posts on just about every design topic imaginable.
They are experts in understanding their potential customers and their search intents - understanding what they could be trying to achieve and connecting them with a specific solution on Canva.
As in the earlier example: “how to choose brand colors” leads you to Canva’s article on their color palette generator, the psychology of color, how to choose colors for your business, and about eight of their YouTube videos on the same topic.
Safe to say I would be able to confidently choose my brand’s colors after this.
Canva gives each potential search intent its own landing page. Which in return builds backlinks for them (other websites linking to Canva). This is intentional.
Canva created tools and pages that can easily be referenced in journalists’ or bloggers’ content - giving Canva more domain authority and higher ranks.
To put this practically, imagine I’m a journalist writing about the rise of SMBs on social media.
I talk about how they’re creating unique content to build an audience. I want to help my readers as much as possible, so I find a tool that can create unique content for social media.
Guess what pops up as my first choice? (not this again… 🤣)
By now I hope you guessed it.
Canva.
And so I link Canva in my article. This not only boosts Canva’s domain authority, but also sends users directly to Canva.
Why 🧩
It’s simple.
Focusing on education and not selling brings your users closer to repeat value - and that’s the best sales tool out there.

Actions you can take to replicate Canva’s success

There is so much to learn from Canva - here are four key actions you can take and replicate into your business:
Introduce scarcity 🔢
One cool way Canva grew before even launching was to use a waitlist.
It’s nothing new nowadays - but still, a lot of people don’t use it.
A waitlist helps test for interest in an idea, but also by using it to limit access to your product, you get the benefit of scarcity.
Canva grew its waitlist super creatively.
They showed people the cool designs and templates from Canva - but you couldn’t get in.
However, you knew that some people were allowed in.
How you may ask?
Canva started to generate buzz within the design community and similar groups who needed design tools.
They reached out to the press, blogs, podcasts, and conferences to offer them early access for their audiences.
That’s how you got in early. That’s how you became a cool kid (at least I’m guessing it made you cool).
Also, anyone who Tweeted about Canva usually “coincidentally” reached the top of the waitlist.
Canva was awesome at generating hype through scarcity.
It shows. 50k people were on the waitlist at launch.
It’s a powerful tool to grow.
People want what they can’t have.
The key to scarcity is you want to be publicly oversubscribed.
You want people to see that others are interested. This makes them think that your product is something worth checking out.
So find a way that you can publicly limit access to your product or a new feature for it.
Find a desperate crowd 🫙
One of the key puzzle pieces to Canva’s success was finding an audience that was desperate for a product to solve their problem - simple and quick designs.
There are tens of millions of freelancers, SMBs, and solopreneurs who lack design skills but need to market themselves and their businesses. And Canva makes this easy.
Canva also entered when Facebook marketing was taking off like a rocketship and the above mentioned people not only needed content - but they needed loads of it.
Canva could do that.
So what does this mean for you?
It’s much harder to make a profitable business by solving a “cherry-on-the-top” problem.
You want to find a problem that people care deeply about. A “whole meal” problem.
Even if this means targeting a smaller group of people. It’s worth sacrificing at the beginning.
Because it will be much easier to market and sell to people who have a desperate need for a solution than people who would just sort of like one.
It becomes much easier to expand after you have your core users. Talking about your core users…
Find your entry wedge customer 🧀
Melanie, Cliff, and Cameron were super smart in recognizing they needed to find and leverage an entry point for Canva (from Fusion Books’ super niche audience).
They perfectly identified SMBs as this wedge to break in.
In 2013, SMBs were flocking to Facebook to market. But the problem once again came back to the complexity of design tools at the time.
These SMBs needed professional-looking designs - cover photos, social media posts, flyers, event banners, etc. - and they needed them quickly and easily.
In stepped Canva.
They positioned themselves to appeal to this huge pain point of SMBs. Specifically their marketing teams (sometimes this was the founders themselves or freelancers serving many SMBs).
Once Canva started to wedge itself in these SMBs, it became easier to convert these individual users into teams using Canva. As well as having the authority to expand to bigger enterprises.
Going to market is hard.
Don’t make it any harder for yourself by trying to target everyone at the beginning.
Find a subset or niche that will help open the door for you.
It also helps your messaging be more targeted, making customer acquisition a bit easier.
Leverage reciprocity 🎁
Refer one person you think would enjoy this newsletter to see this Action to Replicate (for all future deep dives).
I feel like in every one of these deep dives there’s been a consistent golden thread:
Give. Give. Give.
In business, those who give the most get the most.
Want to build trust with potential customers?
Provide real value.
Want to convert more free users to paid users?
Provide more value.
Want to keep users happy and not churning?
Just keep providing value.
Make it seem silly for them to stop using your product.
Build a relationship with your users to the point where they don’t want to stop using your product. And not just because it serves their needs.
But because they also like you and your brand.
And why does giving value through content achieve this so well?
Because not only does it build trust, loyalty, and authority.
But it also leverages reciprocity.
Your users will want to give something of value to you (a referral, a share, or a subscription) because you first gave something of value to them (articles, newsletter, tools, videos, free features)
Reciprocity is powerful. Use it.

In just over a decade Canva went from creating yearbooks for Australian high schools to over 135M users and a $40B valuation.
Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht (now husband and wife) founded Fusion Books in 2007 allowing Australian students to design their school yearbooks.
A few years later, they were the biggest supplier of yearbooks in Australia. And the foundations of Canva were put in place.
Then in 2013, the couple along with technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, launched Canva to a 50k-person waiting list.
Along with their mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere - the team had two ambitious goals in building Canva:

1. Build one of the world’s most valuable companies. 💵
2. To do the most good they can do. 🌱

Safe to say they achieved both. And in doing so, Canva has become one of the biggest success stories of the last decade - especially from a non-USA startup.
This is the story of how Canva went from Zero to One. 🚀 Click here to read the full deep dive.

Business model: How Canva makes money

Canva’s business model is simple - but slightly different from a typical SaaS.
Usually, SaaS businesses choose between Freemium and Free Trial (among others) to convert users to monetization.
But Canva uses both.
They have an awesome Free Plan that is sufficient for (probably) most people.
Then they have three paid plans: Canva Pro, Canva Teams, and Enterprise.
All of these offer more business features such as brand kits and more specialized features such as their background remover. With Enterprise offering a more tailored experience for companies that will have over 100 users.
And then lastly, although not making money, Canva also offers free premium features for educators and NPOs - in line with them doing good!

Canva’s Growth

Canva launched in 2013. But the idea for it started years before.
Melanie and her then-boyfriend Cliff were studying together at the University of Western Australia.
Melissa was studying Psychology and Commerce but was so passionate about design that she taught design programs to other students.
This is where she realized there was a problem.
It would take her students hours to learn the basics of the design tools on the market and the whole semester to become proficient.
A problem she felt was so obvious and needing to be filled that she dropped out of university to pursue it.
To build up some business acumen and money, as well as to test her hypothesis, she and Cliff started Fusion Books - a customizable yearbook tool for high school students in Australia.
Essentially an extremely niche testing ground for Canva.
The idea was a hit. It became the largest yearbook supplier in Australia and still runs profitably today.
This prompted them to go all-in on Canva.
They found a technical co-founder, Cameron Adams, to build the platform and raised $3M in Seed funding.
And so the journey began.
Canva built hype for their launch by creating a public waitlist - which reached 50k people by the time of launch in 2013.
By the end of 2014, Canva already had over 100k users, launched their iPad app, and had ~2M designs created on the platform.
In 2015, Canva launched Canva for Work (now Canva Pro), reached 50 Canvanauts (employees), surpassed 50M designs created, and reached a valuation of $165M.
In 2017 Canva became profitable and launched a bunch of new features and products, including animations, Canva Print, their Android app, and launched in 100 languages.
Canva became a Unicorn in 2018 with their $40M investment round. And made their first acquisition, buying Zeetings to double down on presentations. They also hit 1B designs.
Their acquisitions and new products continued and by the end of 2021, Canva had over 75M MAUs and was valued at $40B after raising an additional $200M.
As of now, Canva has over 135M MAUs, over 4,000 Canvanauts, and more than 15B designs in the last decade - over 200 new designs created per second.

Key Success Factors (KSFs)

There have been so many reasons for Canva’s rocketship success. Here are four that stood out to me, particularly for Canva’s earlier stages of growth:
🌍 1. Solved a BIG, Painful Problem
It seems a bit ridiculous that it took so long for a tool like Canva to exist.
And that’s exactly how Melanie felt, saying that the problem felt so obvious she feared someone else would beat her to it if she didn’t move fast enough.
But hindsight is always 20/20.
Back in the 2000s it probably seemed even more ridiculous that non-designers would need a tool for design.
But luckily for us, Melanie realized this counterintuitive nature of design tools from teaching design programs at university.
Her students struggled to learn the basics.
It took them entire semesters to proficiently learn a new tool.
Plus, for just about everything you wanted to create you needed another tool - which also took a semester to learn.
Think about Canva today - graphics, animations, videos, presentations, documents, graphs and visualizations, and more.
Before Canva you needed: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Powerpoint, Word, Excel, plus a whole bunch more.
Now I’m not suggesting that Canva does any one of these as well as the specialized tool - but it doesn’t need to - nor is it trying to.
Canva wants to be a suite of design tools hosted on one web-based platform. Giving you easier-to-use tools, simple templates, and more ways to collaborate.
Before Canva, this didn’t exist. Before Canva non-designers generally felt hopeless.
Before Canva even launched they had 50k people on their waitlist - this idea was going to be huge!
Now Canva has over 135M MAUs, in over 190 countries, and over 100 languages.
It’s often better to solve a deeply painful problem for a small group of people, than a meh problem for a large group of people.
Well… Canva does both.
Canva solves a deeply painful problem for a MASSIVE group of people.
👶 2. Simplified Everything
Most often, the best solutions are the simplest.
And Canva is a great example.
Canva is the simplest solution.
Canva creates what I like to call a Simplicity Flywheel. Canva is simple to:

• Find 🕵️
• Get started 🌟
• Use 🧰
• Share 📢

Simple to find 🕵️
Google something like “how to design a logo” and guess what pops up on the first page?
Canva.
Try something like “how to choose brand colors”.
Canva.
Okay one more, Google “how to make a YouTube thumbnail”.
Two videos of some guy telling me I can make free thumbnails that convert? Huh?
Oh wait - guess what platform he uses?
Canva.
With the Canva thumbnail tutorial right underneath it by the way!
Canva has done an excellent job with content marketing - popping up on the first page for just about every use case imaginable, but more on this later.
Simple to get started 🌟
Canva has spent countless hours perfecting its onboarding process.
They identified that it wasn’t only the complexity of tools they needed to solve for, but also people’s confidence to design.
This is why they have structured their onboarding to get you to complete a design in a few minutes. If you don’t do it straight away, they make sure to remind you via email.
You get to see how quick and easy the platform is to use. And you make a cool design.
An instant confidence boost.
Canva also provides a ton of content on how to use their platform, how to achieve certain jobs (designs), and how to design better - making their users even more confident in getting started.
You may have noticed a common theme of content here - I promise its section is coming.
Simple to use 🧰
The core feature of Canva.
Create beautiful designs, without all the fuss of a highly technical tool like Photoshop.
It's simple to use - for everybody.
Canva has become their vision of an all-in-one design platform, where anyone can bring their creative visions to life.
No steep learning curves.
No need for more tools.
Simple to share 📢
One of the most critical parts of the flywheel is how simple Canva is to share.
Canva achieves this in a few ways.
The Canva Simplicity Flywheel then starts again.
🪴 3. Created Valuable Content
“The best marketing is education” - Regis McKenna, the key person behind marketing the first Apple Computer.
Canva is a prime example of this quote.
All of their content is made to help users create better designs - specifically on Canva.
Canva now dominates SEO by providing valuable content to their (potential) users.
In fact, Canva didn’t do any paid advertising until after 10M MAUs.
I’ve teased this part of the deep dive for a while now. So I guess I better deliver. Although Canva’s content strategy has been so incredible, I would have to actually try to not let it deliver value to you.
Strategy 🎯
Canva takes a wide-scope, but targeted, actionable approach to their content marketing.
Their key driver for content is creating value-adding pieces that help their users build up their design skills and get the most value out of Canva.
In fact, Canva launched with over one million templates, elements, and fonts.
This removes the friction to design - back to the simplicity.
How 📜
Canva does this by using a jobs-to-be-done intent strategy, i.e., solutions to tasks such as “how to create a LinkedIn carousel”.
They create for super-specific use cases.
But they create for all the use cases. And I mean ALL (the wide-scope part of their strategy).
Canva has six different blogs on just Wedding Photography - and how Canva can fit into it.
I mentioned above how Canva dominates Google searches. This is because they have just put out thousands of high-quality blog posts on just about every design topic imaginable.
They are experts in understanding their potential customers and their search intents - understanding what they could be trying to achieve and connecting them with a specific solution on Canva.
As in the earlier example: “how to choose brand colors” leads you to Canva’s article on their color palette generator, the psychology of color, how to choose colors for your business, and about eight of their YouTube videos on the same topic.
Safe to say I would be able to confidently choose my brand’s colors after this.
Canva gives each potential search intent its own landing page. Which in return builds backlinks for them (other websites linking to Canva). This is intentional.
Canva created tools and pages that can easily be referenced in journalists’ or bloggers’ content - giving Canva more domain authority and higher ranks.
To put this practically, imagine I’m a journalist writing about the rise of SMBs on social media.
I talk about how they’re creating unique content to build an audience. I want to help my readers as much as possible, so I find a tool that can create unique content for social media.
Guess what pops up as my first choice? (not this again… 🤣)
By now I hope you guessed it.
Canva.
And so I link Canva in my article. This not only boosts Canva’s domain authority, but also sends users directly to Canva.
Why 🧩
It’s simple.
Focusing on education and not selling brings your users closer to repeat value - and that’s the best sales tool out there.

Actions you can take to replicate Canva’s success

There is so much to learn from Canva - here are four key actions you can take and replicate into your business:
Introduce scarcity 🔢
One cool way Canva grew before even launching was to use a waitlist.
It’s nothing new nowadays - but still, a lot of people don’t use it.
A waitlist helps test for interest in an idea, but also by using it to limit access to your product, you get the benefit of scarcity.
Canva grew its waitlist super creatively.
They showed people the cool designs and templates from Canva - but you couldn’t get in.
However, you knew that some people were allowed in.
How you may ask?
Canva started to generate buzz within the design community and similar groups who needed design tools.
They reached out to the press, blogs, podcasts, and conferences to offer them early access for their audiences.
That’s how you got in early. That’s how you became a cool kid (at least I’m guessing it made you cool).
Also, anyone who Tweeted about Canva usually “coincidentally” reached the top of the waitlist.
Canva was awesome at generating hype through scarcity.
It shows. 50k people were on the waitlist at launch.
It’s a powerful tool to grow.
People want what they can’t have.
The key to scarcity is you want to be publicly oversubscribed.
You want people to see that others are interested. This makes them think that your product is something worth checking out.
So find a way that you can publicly limit access to your product or a new feature for it.
Find a desperate crowd 🫙
One of the key puzzle pieces to Canva’s success was finding an audience that was desperate for a product to solve their problem - simple and quick designs.
There are tens of millions of freelancers, SMBs, and solopreneurs who lack design skills but need to market themselves and their businesses. And Canva makes this easy.
Canva also entered when Facebook marketing was taking off like a rocketship and the above mentioned people not only needed content - but they needed loads of it.
Canva could do that.
So what does this mean for you?
It’s much harder to make a profitable business by solving a “cherry-on-the-top” problem.
You want to find a problem that people care deeply about. A “whole meal” problem.
Even if this means targeting a smaller group of people. It’s worth sacrificing at the beginning.
Because it will be much easier to market and sell to people who have a desperate need for a solution than people who would just sort of like one.
It becomes much easier to expand after you have your core users. Talking about your core users…
Find your entry wedge customer 🧀
Melanie, Cliff, and Cameron were super smart in recognizing they needed to find and leverage an entry point for Canva (from Fusion Books’ super niche audience).
They perfectly identified SMBs as this wedge to break in.
In 2013, SMBs were flocking to Facebook to market. But the problem once again came back to the complexity of design tools at the time.
These SMBs needed professional-looking designs - cover photos, social media posts, flyers, event banners, etc. - and they needed them quickly and easily.
In stepped Canva.
They positioned themselves to appeal to this huge pain point of SMBs. Specifically their marketing teams (sometimes this was the founders themselves or freelancers serving many SMBs).
Once Canva started to wedge itself in these SMBs, it became easier to convert these individual users into teams using Canva. As well as having the authority to expand to bigger enterprises.
Going to market is hard.
Don’t make it any harder for yourself by trying to target everyone at the beginning.
Find a subset or niche that will help open the door for you.
It also helps your messaging be more targeted, making customer acquisition a bit easier.
Leverage reciprocity 🎁
Refer one person you think would enjoy this newsletter to see this Action to Replicate (for all future deep dives).
I feel like in every one of these deep dives there’s been a consistent golden thread:
Give. Give. Give.
In business, those who give the most get the most.
Want to build trust with potential customers?
Provide real value.
Want to convert more free users to paid users?
Provide more value.
Want to keep users happy and not churning?
Just keep providing value.
Make it seem silly for them to stop using your product.
Build a relationship with your users to the point where they don’t want to stop using your product. And not just because it serves their needs.
But because they also like you and your brand.
And why does giving value through content achieve this so well?
Because not only does it build trust, loyalty, and authority.
But it also leverages reciprocity.
Your users will want to give something of value to you (a referral, a share, or a subscription) because you first gave something of value to them (articles, newsletter, tools, videos, free features)
Reciprocity is powerful. Use it.

I am a semi-p2w player. By that I mean that I buy the Brawl Pass and nothing else. I have an issue though : Right now, I have 250 gems. My issue? I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO BUY. I know the hypercharge deals are the best value, but they're only available every two months. My question : should I be buying level-up offers? They seem to me like the second-best thing to buy. For example : the 189-gem, 2200 powerpoints and 3800 coins deal. Should I buy this? PLEASE HELP I'M DESPERATE.

I decided to re-enter college at which i also have to learn another Language from scratch, and thanks to my ragining audhd i thougth about using Obsidian to make it easier for myself.
If anyone of you uses Obsidian for your Studies or worklife, how do you use it? In which way does it help you with learning, organising or remembering things?
In my case i need to Learn French, and no i have no alternative language.
This is my round about plan: [I'm open for any recs]
1.Three Folders: Inside, create folders for: Words: Track new vocabulary here. Grammar: Keep notes on grammar rules you learn. Cool Stuff: Store interesting French resources (articles, websites).

1. Daily Notes (optional): If you like, write a quick daily note about what French you learned (a few words, a grammar point).
   
2. Simple Flashcards: Use the built-in editor to create notes for new words. Include the word, definition, and maybe an example sentence. Review them often!
   
3. Links and Tags: Link related notes (e.g., a verb you learned in your grammar notes can link to its example sentence in your words folder). Use tags like #beginner or #pronunciation for easy organization.
   

Please, if anyone has Community Plugin ideas tell me!
sidenote: I use a Chrombook

Hello folks,
I just passed my General test yesterday with a perfect score. I think my system worked fairly well, and thought that maybe I'd share how I did it in case anyone would search reddit (as I did) trying to gauge other's experiences and set expectations.
These are the materials I used, and I'm not affiliated with either is any way, this is just my review of them. My background: I covered a lot of electronics and radio theory years ago as an Electronics Technician in the Coast Guard. I also have a degree in Mechanical Engineering. While I'm not as fresh as I used to be, the math portion of the exam was the easiest for me.
I started by listening through Michael Burnette's "The Fast Track to Your General Class Ham Radio License" using an credit on Audible. I payed attention, and would even rewind if I wanted to hear something a 2nd time but didn't work any problems or take notes. I listened a lot while riding my motorcycle on back country adventures, so my attention was there but my mind certainly would also wander. But it gave me a really good overview of the material and the subjects covered, and many of his little tricks for remembering certain exam questions stuck. The one downside is I don't care for him reading all the wrong answers to questions. Often when he would do this I would forget what the question was before the correct answer finally came along. I would agree there are times when explaining why a wrong answer is wrong, but when you have just a list of frequencies for example, I think it would be better to not hear the wrong answers as well as you are still making an association in your mind with them. Still, I recommend this audiobook, and his narration style is very good.
Then I bought the online course from hamradioschool.com taught by Stu Turner. His website might not be as flashy as some of the others, but it was frustration free and the content was really solid. I felt like he was teaching to learn the material and not just pass the test. The best part about his program is the format. You start by reading a PDF of the material, and test questions are highlighted. After reading the material he then does a powerpoint style presentation with a video of him in the lower corner talking about material. All of the topics and exam questions are then presented again. After that, there are bullet points for each exam question, but they aren't told in the exact wording of the exam. Usually they are 10 to 20 points you read and have them fresh in your mind. Then you take the practice test for that sections lesson, and you quickly associate the real test questions with the concepts you just learned. This worked extremely well for me.
At the end of the course I was getting 100's or 97's on all of the practice tests I was taking, and I wouldn't consider myself a person with exceptional recall. In fact, my memory is quite finnicky.
Timeline: Purchased Burnette's book 19 days ago. Listened to it in about for days. Purchased Stu Turners work two weeks ago. Spend two days taking practice tests and going through the question pool on hamstudy.org. Took the test yesterday.
One last note, I emailed Stu asking about which course to take since they are changing the questions here in a couple of months. His answer was in depth and lengthy, and he even looked up my callsign on QRZ and probably a step further because he commented on my beard. I was very impressed by his response.
Anyways, I hope this is helpful to anyone who is about to take the plunge into General. Good luck!
-Alex, KK7SWH

So, I was studying latin and conjugating the verb "dicere". In the passive voice of the present tense, 2nd person singular, it supposedly is "diceris" and not "diciris". I thought it was "diciris", since the vowel "-i" is used in 3rd conjugation verbs. Is this an exception or is it a rule for the 2nd person singular of the passive voice of the present tense of a 3rd conjugation verb to have the vowel "-e" instead of "-i"?
Thank you in advance for the help, and sorry for the confusing way I wrote this post.

Hello! I'm starting med school in England in September. I currently have a Macbook Air M1. I cannot stand MacOS and desperately want a windows laptop. All my university work is done through Microsoft (e.g. powerpoint, docs, excel). I've worked on a thinkpad in the past, but ended up ditching it because of the battery life. Because my university hours will be super long, battery life is an absolute must. Ideally, 6-8 hours without needing to plug in. UK suggestions would be appreciated (as that's where i'm currently situated), but my dad lives in the US and would be able to bring over a laptop when he helps me move into accommodation (so US suggestions are welcomed too).
LAPTOP QUESTIONNAIRE

• Total budget (in local currency) and country of purchase. Please do not use USD unless purchasing in the US:
  • 200-600 gbp (willing to spend more if there are no good suggestions in that range)
• Are you open to refurbs/used?
  • yes
• How would you prioritize form factor (ultrabook, 2-in-1, etc.), build quality, performance, and battery life?
  • Battery life = #1. Absolutely must have a battery that permits working away from home for long stretches of time. Are there any windows laptops that are not ridiculously expensive that compare to the battery life on the macbook?
• How important is weight and thinness to you?\
  • Don't care
• Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A
  • Larger screen is preferred (i.e. 15in) but not at the expense of battery.
• Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run.
  • Video editing & some gaming, but very little in comparison to university work.
• If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want?
  • don't care
• Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)
  • A touchpad thats similar to the macbook if possible? I thought the touchpad on the thinkpad was horrendous if thats helpful lmao.
• Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion.

Specifically I am looking for the art of Dr. Ratio where somebody edited his splash art to be more "naked" The context? A group of friends and me are making a powerpoint to convince another friend to play HSR before free Ratio is gone.
Its a dumb lil funny thing but it'd be great if somebody could help us out!

Specifically I am looking for the art of Dr. Ratio where somebody edited his splash art to be more "naked" The context? A group of friends and me are making a powerpoint to convince another friend to play HSR before free Ratio is gone. Its a dumb lil funny thing but it'd be great if somebody could help us out!

I am new to this journey of learning finnish and I am struggling to realise when do we use partitive and inessive. I have seen a lot of videos about them but still can't understand. I tried to think about "partitive when I say something specific" but it seems that even that doesn't seem to work. Actually it doesn't seem correct at all. Are there are specific verbs that go with specific cases? Can someone help me?

LESSON SEVEN
Now that you have learnt the basics of verbs in Masonese, it is important to learn sa as a modal verb. Because stems in Masonese are so short, often a compound verb is used instead of a short stem. This involves using 'to do' and a noun. It's really quite simple. Only sa gets conjugated, and the noun stays as is.
Here are some examples:

• I agree (I do agreement) = A sa bular
• I worry (I do worry) = A sa anisis
• I care (I do care) = A sa mbros
• I demand (I do a demand) = A sa sina
• I create (I do creation) = A sa generses

In informal speech it is possible to shorten sa to s' in order to speak more quickly. In this case, some beginning consonants may mutate to become voiceless. This applies to all plosive and fricative consonants.

• A sa bular ~ a s'pular
• A sa generses ~ a s'kenerses

If the noun begins with a vowel, often some form of liaison is done, joining the two words together. This is not shown in spelling:

• A sa anisis (I worry) can be pronounced a sansis
• A sa abro (I join) can be pronounced a sabro
• A sa antar (I turn) can be pronounced a santar

Remember: only sa as a modal verb conjugates, no change needs to be made to the noun.

Nyo	Valya
Katam Valya, ts'u nesa generses dūa?
	A nesa generses neta lo vin vaisi
Dithi, ts'a per sa abro u?
	Pa, u per sa abro a. A n'sa ando u nejag mbrosa
Bovo a jagse mbrosa. Ts'a per asin u hūa
	Aidē. Monier, sa mbar inu edebris lo a
Prae. A ser mbar inu edebris
	Thua, a sas andre hūa nesa pthefros edebris
Pa, a shpai
	En, sa tsai ia veg ilmempia, og kheth lo ejeuro
A ser ksitra
	Mnaea! Neta lo vin vaisi, alo sa pse!

Nyo	Valya
Hello Valya, what are you creating?
	I am creating a toy for my sibling
Excellent, can I join you?
	Yes, you can join me. I'm relying on you to be careful
Of course I will be careful. How can I help you?
	Thank you. First, gather all the pieces for me
Sure. I have gathered all the pieces
	Now, I will explain how to sew the pieces
Yes, I understand
	Then, I stuff it with cotton, and I check the seams
I have done everything
	Voila! A toy for my sibling, let's make another

Aidē
Vetım Vö Adonavë Valah Mbaq

Where can I find organized materials about what exactly I have to learn for the written driving exam? Please help
I already tried with one driving school but their documents/powerpoints were super disorganized and incomprehensible
Also would anyone know which exact First Aid course is necessary to get your license? There are many on the Bulgarian Red Cross website.
https://firstaid.redcross.bg/

Below you will find a weekly reminder of our Rules and partial FAQ. It's definitely a long read, but it's worth your time, especially if you are new to the community, or dropping by as a result of a link you found elsewhere. We periodically revise our rules, this weekly notice will help keep you informed of any changes made.
NOTE: These rules are guidelines. Some moderation discretion is to be expected.

Community Rules

1. Kindness Matters

Advise, don't criticize.

• Post with empathy, thoughtfulness, and constructive commentary rather than judgment. Don't be an asshole.
• Name-calling, slurs (including gender or race based slurs), and insults towards other community members will not be tolerated. Do not attack others for their personally held values, custody situation, marital status, physical distance from stepkids, or economic status; or on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, or ethnicity.
• No name-calling toward children, including the above-mentioned insults or the term "skids", or terms such as "mini-wife" or "mini-husband."
• Comments advocating spanking or any mention of wanting to harm children are not allowed.
• This is a support sub, not a judgement sub, assholes are not tolerated. Comments with terms used in other subs to pass judgement on assholes will be removed.

2. No Drama

This is a support sub.

• Bickering, nitpicking, and thread derailment will not be tolerated and will be subject to removal at moderator discretion.
• Do not repeatedly badger a poster demanding answers, or refuse to acknowledge an answer that's already been given.
• Do not use sensitive issues from past posts (either from this sub or other subs) to attack another user, as we are all discussing vulnerable topics.
• Crossposting anything from /stepparents to any other subreddit might result in a ban and may result in the original thread being locked. Brigading our sub will result in an immediate ban.

3. Report, Don’t Rant

No backseat modding.

• If you see someone breaking the rules, report the post or comment to the mods rather than engaging them in an argument. Failure to do so may be subject to comment removal at moderator discretion.
• No meta posts complaining about rude comments, DMs, or general sub issues.
• If you think someone is a troll or previously banned user, either use the report function or message the mods to direct their attention to the issue.

4. No Naming & Shaming

No userpings or links.

• Tagging/pinging users or other subreddits in an attempt to bully, harass, or complain will not be tolerated. Do not tag other subs, ever.
• If you want to complain about another subreddit being hostile to stepparents, do not name the subreddit. "Other parenting/advice/judgement subs" will suffice.

5. No Platitudes

Nobody knew what they were getting into.

• Comments like "You knew what you were getting into", "Love them, love their kids!", "They're a package deal!" and "You have to love them like your own!" will be removed.
• Comments suggesting that OP is not cut out for stepparenting will be removed at moderator discretion.
• Comments like "This is just a part of parenting, deal with it!" will be removed at moderator discretion.

6. No Trolling

We have zero tolerance for trolls.

• This is a support sub. Our subscribers do not have the time, nor inclination, to provide support to internet trolls. Posts that are suspected to be trolling attempts will be immediately removed, and the poster banned.
• Concern trolling, devil's advocating, gish-galloping, sealioning, and general asshattery are subject to immediate removal and banning without warning or notice.
• Any attempt to circumvent the ban by creating a new username will be reported to reddit admins and possibly result in account suspension.

7. No Personally Identifiable Information

Use discretion when posting.

• We highly recommend using a separate account for support subs to help prevent being doxxed. Do not post any information that may allow others to figure out your identity.
• Do not post photos of children, or any other photo that could be used to identify you or another user on the sub.
• Any image that contains a name or other identifying information should have the name or identifying information blurred out. This includes drawings, notes, and screenshots.
• Do not link to social media or any articles/blogs where you or another user on the sub is mentioned by name.

8. No More than 2 Posts per 24 hours

Use the daily threads.

• We are not a huge sub, but we are no longer a small sub. If you have multiple grievances to air, use the daily discussion threads instead of multiple posts.

9. Follow Reddiquette

Remember the human.

• Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life.
• Read it in full here.
• Downvoting is reserved for comments that don’t contribute, and shouldn't be used to indicate disagreement.
• If you believe someone is in violation of the subreddit rules, please either use the report function or message the mods to direct their attention to the issue.
• Suspected brigading will be reported to reddit admins.

10. No Porn, Spam, Blogs, or Research Studies/Surveys Without Mod Approval

Just don't.

• This is a SFW subreddit. Posting pornography will result in immediate post removal and permanent ban.
• Advertising on the subreddit (outside of Reddit's own advertising) is not allowed.
• No personal blog posts are allowed without express moderator permission.
• No advertising without prior mod approval.
• No asking for money/posting fundraisers/etc.
• For links to parenting research studies or surveys, please message the mods for permission before posting.

11. Disputes in Modmail Only

Don't argue with the mods on the sub.

• Any issues specifically related to how a mod is moderating should be addressed to the full moderating team via mod mail. This ensures that all mods are aware of any concerns and prevents disintegration of the topic thread at hand.
• This means to do not message or send chat requests to individual mods. All discussion and complaints about mod actions need to be done in mod mail ONLY. Failure to follow this rule can result in an immediate permanent ban.
• Comments in threads asking about mod decisions are subject to removal without notice.

12. Moderator Actions

We aren't kidding.

• Users are expected to know the rules before posting. If you are warned or banned for violating the rules, ignorance is not an excuse.
• Moderators will remove posts and comments and/or lock threads in accordance with the rules above. Typically this happens when threads have gone off-topic in a way that is not productive for the OP, or comments overall have become contentious or disrespectful.
• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

13. Ban Procedure

These actions are at moderator discretion.

• Pornography will result in an automatic permanent ban.
• Extremely egregious content will result in an immediate permanent ban.
• You may receive a 7 or 30 day temporary ban for first and second rule violations, depending upon severity.
• Continued rule violations will result in a permanent ban.
• Willful attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban.
• We recognize the reddit site-wide rules of using alt names to get around bans and will ban those as well as report them to reddit admins.

​
​

FAQ - About the Rules

What does Kindness Matters mean?

• Shortest version? Don't be an asshole. People come here for support and advice, they do not come here to be yelled at or told they are the reason everything is going sideways. There are ways to point out that someone may want to do some reflection on their own actions and reactions without being an asshole about it.
• The purpose of this subreddit is to provide support and a sense of belonging for struggling stepparents. We aren't here to pass judgement, but rather to offer support, empathy, and constructive commentary. That does not include "hard truths" or "tough love." Stepparents get enough of that in every other subreddit, we're not passing it out here. Be respectful.
• Remember, most people aren't going to come to a sub like this when everything is going great and everyone is getting along. People are coming here when they are down, when they are feeling defeated and stretched to the limit. Kicking someone when they are down is shitty behavior and we don't tolerate it.

What about being kind to the kids?

• "Won't somebody think of the children?" Pearl clutching isn't needed here. If you read the Kindness Matters rule closely, you will see that there is a clause in there about name calling children. We don't allow it. We also don't allow people rolling in telling OP that they feel sorry for their stepkids because OP is feeling overwhelmed and overloaded.
• If anyone is advocating slapping, spanking, or any other form of violence, report the comment immediately. We do not advocate violence towards children of any sort. The mod team does not advocate any sort of physical punishment at any time.
• Venting about behaviors is not the same as insulting the kids. However, if you see a post or comment where kids are being name called or dragged to the point of no return, use the report button. We try to catch the posts and remove them before they hit the sub, but we cannot see every comment without your help. Use the report button to bring problematic comments to our attention. Don't engage in a war of words on our subreddit.

Why is this sub such an echo chamber?

• Not allowing contributors to pile on and tell OP that they are a terrible human being who should never be around children does not equate to being an echo chamber. Many contributors here will offer OP suggestions to help them work through their resentments and frustrations, and the most egregious situations are called out. We simply ask that it be called out with respect.
• If you feel that a post is simply too much for you to handle without following the rules, move on to another post.
• If you believe that a post itself is crossing the rules report it. If the mod team has approved the post, it is because the mod team believes that the OP needs help from the community or needs a moment to vent and move on from their vent. That does not give you license to pile on disrespectfully. Unless it is proven that OP is a bot, assume that OP is a human being with real thoughts and feelings and has posted from a place of vulnerability.

Why can't I tell OP that they are an asshole?

• Because this isn't a judgement sub. We aren't AITA, we don't want to be AITA.
• Comments with terms like YTA, NTA, ESH, NAH will be removed.
• Don't start your posts with INFO either. We generally recognize that as a fishing attempt for more information to pass judgement on OP, and again, we are not a judgment sub.

But OP asked if they were an asshole?!

• Their post somehow got past our automoderator. Just use the report button. We will address it with OP.
• If you've asked if you are an asshole, a-hole, a*hole, a**hole, whatever, don't be surprised if your post is removed without warning. This isn't a judgment sub. If you want judgment, you know where to go.

What is a gendered slur?

• While it seems that everyone understands what racist slurs are, people struggle understanding the concept of gendered slurs. Generally speaking, we are talking about derogatory nouns or verbs that are used to negatively describe people or situations based on gendered terms.
• We've gone back and forth on this a few times, and the truth is, we get it, it's your safe space and you want to be able to vent about BM/BD how you want to vent about them, without us telling you how to vent about them. Fair enough. Vent away. What we are going to stick to here how people are referring to other users and to stepchildren.
• Examples that are not allowed:
  • "My SD is such a little bitch."
  • "She dresses/acts like a slut."
  • "My SS acts like a pussy."
  • "My SS is such a beta male."
  • "You are all fucking whores."
  • "Any dude who is raising some sluts kids is a cuck!"
  • "Little Lord Fauntleroy over here thinking he runs the house!"
  • "You're just the bangnanny, get used to it."
• Don't call users here names, don't call stepchildren names.
• Masking the term with asterisks or other neat little tricks might get you around the bot, but if we see it, we're removing it and quite possibly giving you a time out. The intended word is still there and you deliberately tried to skate the rule.
• As there is not enough space to list every term that is offensive and does not belong, nor every situation in which term or phrase may be allowable in context, this rule is enforced based on moderator discretion.

Seriously? You are the language police now?

• We're here to talk about stepparenting. And we would like for that to happen in a respectful way. Attacking each other doesn't help. Belittling stepchildren draws in trolls who don't understand your frustration, all they see is an evil stepmonster talking shit on the internet about a poor, innocent baby. Yes, even if that "poor, innocent baby" just robbed you blind and set fire to the house on their way out the door. That's just how it goes.
• We are aware that this is a relatively new rule and a lot of older posts and comments contain a lot of problematic language, including some from mods themselves. We are growing and evolving, and rules change as the sub grows and evolves.

What does No Drama really mean?

• Pretty much what it says, do not bring drama from other subs into this sub. Do not engage in vote brigades. Do not try to incite other subscribers to riot in a different sub. Don't follow posters into this sub from other subs to continue to harass them. Do not badger someone or derail threads. Do not harass community members because you don't agree with them. There's enough drama in the daily lives of subscribers, more isn't needed.

What is thread derailment?

• When a comment chain has devolved to the point where all you are doing is arguing back and forth with someone about the same thing over and over again, you have derailed the thread. Also known as bickering. It's what children do. We assume if people are in a stepparent role they are adults. We expect you to act like it.
• If you aren't a stepparent, or in a stepparenting role, consider that perhaps this subreddit isn't for you. If you want to participate, do so with respect. Thread derailment, arguing, bickering, and nitpicking are not allowed.

But what if they didn't answer my question?

• No one has to answer your questions. This is a support sub, not an inquisition. Jumping on a bandwagon with "OP is evading the question" in a 20 comment long chain is the epitome of thread derailment. You'll find more information about trolling below and how this might be considered such.

Why am I being silenced? I'm just asking for a back and forth!

• Thread derailment, badgering, and nitpicking are considered harassment. Continued harassment of either community members or mods will get you banned.

Why can't I look at someone's post history and comment about it?

• No mod in the history of this sub has ever once said post histories are forbidden. What we do frown upon is using someone's post history to attack, belittle, or otherwise harass someone.
• Example Post: "My stepkid's mom really hates me. How can I make this better?"
  • Okay: "Based on the timeline and your post history, it looks like this may have started as an affair. Unfortunately there's going to be outstanding issues for a long time due to that. Try focusing on yourself and how you can move forward without worrying about how someone else feels about you."
  • Not Okay: "Holy shit! You were the OW! What the hell do you expect, homewrecker?!"
• Example Post: "I am completely overloaded and feeling very down about myself."
  • Okay: "In your post history you mentioned that your spouse wasn't really helping around the house. Has that changed at all?"
  • Not Okay: "LOL, you already got the answers you need in your post on relationships. You are stupid for sticking with your lazy spouse."

Why can't we crosspost stuff to other subs?

• We can't stop you from doing so. The problem isn't that something has been crossposted, it's when the community that it's been crossposted to feels the need to come over here and harass OP. When we see that happening, we lock the post and start passing out bans. If you did the crossposting, you'll be banned. If you participated in the brigading, you'll be banned.

What if it's my own post?

• Again, we can't stop you from doing so. We prefer that you don't technically crosspost, but rather just copy and paste your post. Why? Because inevitably the above will happen. Redditors from other subs will follow you back to /stepparents and start attacking users here. It just happens.

What is "brigading"?

• Reddit defines vote manipulation and brigading as follows:
• Using multiple accounts, voting services, or any other software to increase or decrease vote scores.
• Asking people to vote up or down certain posts, either on Reddit itself or through social networks, messaging, etc. for personal gain.
• Forming or joining a group that votes together, either on a specific post, a user's posts, posts from a domain, etc.
• We, along with pretty much every other subreddit that has ever had to deal with this nonsense, further define brigading as this: You saw a post on another sub that linked to our sub either via a link in a comment or a crosspost. It was basically saying something along the lines of "OMG, check out these assholes over on /stepparents! They literally hate all their stepkids!" And then you and your friends come over and start hammering on OP and telling OP how much they suck. Congrats, you have just participated in a brigade.

What is this whole Report, Don't Rant thing about?

• If you see a post or comment that breaks the rules, instead of engaging, report it. When you report it, it sends notification to the mod team. We will act on it where appropriate. Engaging with bad faith users may result in your comments being removed. If you repeatedly do so, you may end up being banned.

What if I see an obvious troll?

• Report it.

What if they are being really mean in comments?

• Report it.

What if they are harassing me in private messages?

• Step 1: Report them to admins. You can report harassment to reddit by using this link or send a DM to reddit admins. Include the link to the DM, admins can see your inbox and providing a direct link is helpful for them to weed out bad actors.
• Step 2: Block the person so they cannot directly contact you again.
• Step 3: Send us a mod mail and let the mod team know. Tell us who they are and what they said, send us a screenshot if you can - admins can see your DMs, mods can't. We'll take action where necessary by banning from the sub if they aren't already banned.

What do you mean by No Naming & Shaming?

• Just as we prefer to not be linked to or crossposted from, we do not allow linking to or calling out other subs by name. If you see something you want to share, say it's a hot post that has hit the front page and a stepparent is being absolutely flayed, just refer to it as "that hot post that hit the front page." If you want to complain about other places in general, "other parenting/advice/judgement subs" will suffice. Absolutely under no circumstances should you link to anywhere else.

I can't link to other subs?

• Do not directly link to another sub. (e.g.: "/insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not name other subs. (e.g.: "I won't link to it directly, but insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not abbreviate other subs. (e.g.: "I know that ISNH is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")

I can't ping other users?

• Do not summon another user with a username ping/tag. (e.g.: "insertusernamehere was being an asshole.")
• If you are agreeing with someone, it is okay to link to them. (e.g.: "I agree with insertusernamehere, you need to take a couple of steps back and reflect on this.")

What does No Platitudes mean?

• Sanctimonious, overused clichés that grossly oversimplify the stepparenting experience are neither wanted nor allowed here. We have all heard it a thousand times before, we don't need to hear it again. It's not nearly as insightful and wise as some would like to think.

Why don't you people understand it's a package deal?

• Any comment that suggests that OP should have known what they were getting involved with, or that they needed to understand that the kids were part of some package they needed to accept before signing up for marriage is subject to immediate removal.
• This is one of the most insensitive things you can say to a stepparent. Most stepparents were aware of the children, but they were probably not aware of all of the family dynamics.

Why can't you just love them like they are your own?

• Demanding that a stranger you do not know love children that are not biologically theirs as if they were theirs can be incredibly damaging to someone who is already in a vulnerable situation. Any comment that falls along these lines will be removed.

What do you mean by No Trolling? I was just...

• No means no. No trolling. No pretending to be a stepparent and then whipping out the Greatest Hits Bingo Card of The Worst Stepparent in the History of Stepparents. We see you. We've seen you a thousand times.

What does "concern trolling", "gish-galloping", and "sealioning" have to do with stepparenting? This isn't a debate sub, why are you using debate terms?

• That's absolutely right, this isn't a debate sub. And yet, here we are, day after day, having to defend ourselves against this sort of thing. So, enough. No more. Usage of any of these things will get you banned.

What is "Concern Trolling?"

• A concern troll is someone who disingenuously visits sites of an opposing ideology to disrupt conversation by offering unwanted advice on how to solve problems which do not really exist.
  • Example Post: OP expresses concern that she will feel, and possibly act, differently towards her stepchildren after her husband decides that no, he doesn't want anymore children after all.
  • Example Concern Troll pulled from actual mod mail after their comment was removed: "Possible child abuse claims need to be sorted out well before whatever empathy you believe the OP was looking for."

What is a "Devil's Advocate"?

• "I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but have you considered that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break, too?" BM has dozens of different mom based subs alone on reddit she can complain on, this sub is for stepparents. The stepparent doesn't need to consider that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break.

"Gish-galloping?" What does that even mean?

• The Gish Gallop is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort. The Gish Gallop is a conveyor belt-fed version of the on the spot fallacy, as it's unreasonable for anyone to have a well-composed answer immediately available to every argument present in the Gallop.

And "sealioning?" What's that?

• Sealioning involves jumping into a conversation with endless polite, reasonable questions and demands for answers, usually of entry-level topics far below the actual conversation (e.g. "please prove sexism exists"). This tactic differs little from harassment; instead of discussion, the point is to derail discussion, receive criticism (for their ignorance) so as to look like a victim, or to make someone feel overwhelmed and quit talking.

Who gets to define what is considered asshattery?

• The mod team, of course! If we feel that comments are out of line, are trolling, are leading up to a fight or "just asking questions", we are going to remove them and most likely ban the offender.

​
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FAQ - Sub Questions

Posting Guidelines for Stepparents

• Body text is required, we suggest you use line breaks between paragraphs as a wall of text is difficult to read. Posts that have only a title are likely to be removed. Instead of using names (even fictitious ones), try to use the sub acronyms. It helps our users to follow along if you use the acronyms and not names.
• Assign a post flair that accurately describes what your post is about and what you are seeking. If you are posting an update from a previous post, include a link to that post.
• Flairs are applied to posts to determine what a person is looking for. When submitting a new post, you should choose a flair that specifies if you are looking for advice, support, etc. The following link flair is available and is color coded with side bar links so that you can search by flair:
  • Advice - For when you are specifically asking for advice or help.
  • Announcement - Mod Use Only, for subreddit announcements.
  • Daily (Formerly TTP) - Mod Use Only, for our daily discussion threads.
  • Discussion - A little advice, a little "How does your family handle this?"
  • JustBMThings - Pretty sure this is self explanatory!
  • Legal - Asking for legal advice? Tag it with this!
  • Miscellany - Just a sort of off topic thing? Use this tag.
  • Resource - Sharing a good resource or asking for one? This is the tag you need!
  • Support - For those days when you want nothing but a good old fashioned cry and some community love.
  • Update - Updating us on something that you posted about previously? Use this one!
  • Vent - We all need to vent sometimes. Respect the tag as a vent. This isn't how OP talks all day every day.
  • Win! - Celebrate those wins with us with this tag!
  • Megathread - Mod Use Only, for large mega threads (typically around major calendar events.)

Posting Guidelines for Bioparents

• Stepparents is a support community for stepparents, by stepparents. As bioparents, you may want to have more insight into how the stepparent in your life feels or thinks. You may have questions on how to ease the transition for your partner. However, please keep in mind that this community was not created for you. It was created for your partner or your ex's partner. If you are seeking support on how to deal with a stepparent, there are other subs more suited for your situation and your post is subject to removal.
• There are some posts from bioparents we will accept:
  • Seeking advice on how to support your partner as they navigate stepparenting
  • Seeking resources to help you better support your partner
  • Seeking resources for your partner
• There are some posts from bioparents we will not accept:
  • Complaints about how the stepparent is too involved in your kids lives
  • Vents about how the stepparent is not involved enough in your kids lives
  • "Cautionary tales" advising stepparents to back off
  • Seeking advice on how to tell the stepparent to back off
  • The Do's and Dont's of Stepparenting
  • How your kid's stepmom is literally The Worst
• Comments from bioparents that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from bioparents that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. There are several other subs that may meet the needs of bioparents better than we can. We recommend /coparenting, /parenting, /parents, /blendedfamilies, and /singleparents as starting points.

Guidelines for Stepkids

• At this time, we do not generally accept posts from stepkids. Comments from stepkids that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from stepkids that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. If you are a stepkid seeking support, we highly recommend /stepkids. It is a very supportive community specifically for stepkids. We also recommend /blendedfamilies as another potential group for support.

What the heck are all these acronyms? I'm confused!

• Check out the Common Acronyms wiki page. We try to keep this updated as new terms are introduced to the sub.

Why aren't my posts or comments showing up?

• New posters and accounts go through a waiting period before their posts will show in the sub and the comments on posts automatically. During the new account approval period the mod team will check posts to be sure you aren't attempting to circumvent a ban with a shiny new account. Please be patient while the timer runs down on your "new" status and the mod team approves your posts and responses.

Why was my comment removed?

• Comments are removed when they do not follow the rules of the sub. These rules are published in several places for your reading pleasure.
• Comments are removed at moderator discretion. In some cases your comment may be removed while another remains up. If you find this to be the case, and you believe the comment to be violating the rules, instead of arguing with mods or demanding they remove the additional comments, just report it.

This comment/post is really offensive! Why is it still up?

• All moderators are volunteers and have busy real lives. Sometimes things get past us. The best thing you can do is report anything you find offensive or inflammatory. It's the quickest and most reliable way of alerting us to an issue.

I've received a hurtful/unwanted PM from someone about my recent post. What should I do?

• If you receive an unwanted/hurtful PM from a name you don't recognize, please report it to Reddit Admins using our handy pre-populated form. Be sure to include the permalink to the message. We've been dealing with a few unhappy folks who like to attack stepparents, and reporting it to the admins is the only way to make it stop.

What are the general moderator guidelines?

• Users are expected to know the rules before posting. If you are warned or banned for violating the rules, ignorance is not an excuse.
• Moderators will remove posts and comments and/or lock threads in accordance with the rules above. Typically this happens when threads have gone off-topic in a way that is not productive for the OP, or comments overall have become contentious or disrespectful.
• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

I've been wrongly banned/Why can't I comment here?

• Due to an influx of harassment from users with specific user histories, we have employed a user history ban bot as described above. If you think this has affected you and wish to appeal, please message the mods.

Why was I banned without warning?

• There are numerous reasons that the mod team might opt to move perm banning without warning. Message the moderators if you have specific questions.

Hello friends,
My current 6 year old Razer Blade is shitting the bed. This summer I'll build a strong Desktop, but I'll still need a mobile device for Uni. Obviously I'll invest the bulk of my resources into the PC.
In looking for viable cheap alternatives I've come across Chromebooks, and their cheap pricetag, along with great battery life and mobility intrigue me. The other option I'm thinking about is getting a used/older Thinkpad or something like that.
The question is, can I use a Chromebook to cast my Desktop while I'm in Uni via something like Google Chrome Remote Desktop? Is that a reliable option? Or am I better off just getting an old laptop? I really don't wanna spend a lot of money on my mobile device, as pretty much all it has to do is take notes in class and be able to edit PowerPoint presentations or docs/pdfs (standard Uni stuff).
Also, do I even need to cast my Desktop? Is a Chromebook by itself enough for my very basic needs?
Any help is greatly appreciated!

Hey! It’s been long over due that I buy myself a laptop, specifically for my second year of college. I’ve been able to get by with laptops borrowed from my school, but I really just gotta bite the bullet and invest in my own.
I’ve been shopping around looking for some laptops, but didn’t realize how many are actually on the market. So, any recommendations would help.
I’m looking for a laptop that will hold up for a good few years. I only really would use it for school work (excel, word, powerpoint) and maybe some other minimal tasks. If you have any recommendations of laptops or where to shop for the best deals let me know!!
Side note: I want to stay away from Mac’s and Apple products due to them not being able to run some programs my college requests!