life

Reflections on 2020

I feel kind of conflicted writing this, because 2020 was a horror of a year for most people around the world. Instead, for me, and my family, it was somewhat of a start of new beginnings and some huge wins.

I feel that I have finally stepped out of a decade long black tunnel, and I can finally see the light ahead. You see, back in 2009, I lost my dad, and my wife lost her mum. For us, each losing the parent that we were closest to really took the wind out of our sails, and we both felt that we had lost purpose and a solid goal in life.

I lost interest in my old consulting business, and ended up selling it back in 2015 so that I could focus on launching a brand new startup that meant I could write software that I wanted to write. My wife felt ‘blocked’ in her art, and ended up taking on multiple part time jobs to ensure a steady income for the family while I rebuilt my career (what a crazy thing to do when you turn 50, huh?).

It basically meant a decade of ‘grind’ and living on our savings and on the good will and charity of others. I am forever grateful to family members and close friends who supported us unquestioningly during those difficult days.

But I will be honest and say that because it went on so long, there were days where I despaired that we would never see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that I was just throwing energy into something that wouldn’t last or pan out the way I expected.

People came and went into our lives during that time. Some left us in a better position, but some also left us in a far worse position. After a former co-founder lost interest in my startup and abruptly left in 2018, I ended up in hospital with a stress related heart condition, and I feared that this would mean I could not bounce back again.

But being in these depths was also what forged my inner strength, and bounce back I did. I found a new co-founder and together we built the business up to a far higher level than I ever thought possible. 2020 was the first full calendar year we worked together, and we managed to get to well over a thousand paying customers and we currently manage tens of thousands of employees on our HR SaaS platform.

In some ways, the COVID scare that shut down most of the world was a boon for us, as more people wanted an HR system to manage their suddenly remote or ‘work from home’ teams. For the first time in a long while, I felt that were in the right place at the right time. Well, more accurately, the right place at the wrong time.

I don’t like the idea that we are benefiting from something that is causing so much misery, but I re-frame that as being that we are providing a valuable service to people that want to survive the tough times we are in. In fact, rather than capitalising on this by raising our prices as many mentors have suggested, we instead slashed our prices by half to make it easier for struggling businesses to jump aboard.

My wife managed to go back to just the one part time job that she loves, and she has more time for her art and other creative passions. Our oldest son, who had moved down to Melbourne to pursue his music career also moved back home while the entertainment industry rebuilds itself, so it has been good to have the family back together again.

This week was a milestone, as it marked the first full year of me earning a steady salary from my startup. It was so good not to have to watch our pile of savings diminishing away, and to be able to pay bills using the income earned from something that just started out as an idea in my head all those years ago.

Life is good. 2020 was good, and 2021 will be better.

Six figures...

Checked my phone this morning to see that we had hit another milestone that I had been holding in the back of my mind for years. We hit six figures in our business bank account. This was after paying all salaries and wages for our growing team (we just had a new developer join our team this week).

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“Cashflow positive”. A term I thought I would never see just a couple of years ago. Now we have a “war chest” to reinvest back into our business to grow it to an extent that we will soon see 7, and even 8 figures in our bank. I am more confident of that now than I have ever been before.

But the past few months of hard work are catching up with me, so I have taken a week’s break from work this week. I know my exceptional team will keep things running, and they have been SO supportive of me taking some time off. I intend to come back next week totally recharged, and to begin work on get to that 7+ figures in our account.

Why do most people give up after one try? I blame Wile E. Coyote!

Most people of my generation grew up with Saturday morning cartoons on TV.  One of my favourites was always watching Wile E. Coyote endlessly chasing the Road Runner.

I don't know about you, but I was always rooting for the coyote, and straw polls among my peers seemed to show a similar sentiment.  We all craved for the day that Wile E would triumph and be rewarded with a road runner roast.  (Rumour has it that there was ONE secret episode in which he actually won, but furious Googling and Youtubing has yet to reveal this treasure.)

But even as a young impressionable kid, I was always vexed by two questions.

1. How did Wile E afford all that gear and equipment from Acme Inc. ??  He must have either had a large stash of money somewhere, or else a great line of credit with the company.

1b. And if he DID indeed have access to lots of cash, why didn't he just BUY himself a Kentucky Fried Roadrunner family dinner instead of trying to hunt one himself?  Perhaps he was just in it for the thrill of the chase?

2. Why did Wile E always give up after the first try?  I mean, he would invest a LOT of money and time in setting up the most elaborate traps, but as soon as one tiny thing made it all go wrong, he would give up and move onto the next idea, instead of retrying or improving his first idea.

 

I think it is this second factor that has become imbued in a lot of people in my generation.  I keep meeting peer entrepreneurs who tell me sorry tales of woe where they tried something the once, noticed that it didn't work, then dropped it like a hot potato to move on to the next thing.

Usually when I probe further and ask them if they tried to pivot their idea in some way or revisit it with some changes, I am met with an incredulous stare.  They almost always never considered trying again.

I blame Wile E.

In a lot of ways, Wile E. Coyote is much like a lot of funded startups these days:

  • A LOT of disposable cash, with a high burn rate
  • 'Fail fast' manifesto - pick and, dust off and try something new after every failure
  • Quick iteration from concept to execution, with bare minimum planning beforehand, or else planning as they go along
  • Single track focus on ONE end result, but with many paths to get there

Arguably some good traits in there, but there is always room for improvement.  I always wondered what would have happened if Wile E had grown intellectually and emotionally and perhaps explored the possibilities of:

  • Using guile to befriend and win the trust of the Roadrunner before capturing him
  • Had 'guaranteed performance' contracts drawn up with Acme Inc. that would have insured him against failure and allowed him to replace failed equipment at no extra cost
  • Used his money and influence to organise other coyotes in the area to work together to capture roadrunners

Perhaps the generation of entrepreneurs that grew up with those messages may be going things slightly differently nowadays?  

Well, at least MY Saturday mornings may have been a LOT more enjoyable had he done so.