Entrepreneurship
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Why is being alone scarier than failing?
I set a goal to launch five ideas in 2021. This would atone me for failing to launch past projects and help me get over my fear of launching in public. But somehow this morphed into “launching five of my ideas with other people.”
Before the New Year, I approach someone I worked with on Gvbck to join me on my Sharescrption idea. But after two weeks, it was clear that the partnership was not working. I’ve been here before. Sadly plenty of times. I know what someone who is not committed feels like. There is a simple test…. stop calling.
And that is what I did three weeks ago. I stopped calling. If he calls me we have a different problem. But if he does not call me I’m right. Not committed.
He has not called me in three weeks. In that time I built and launched Sharescrption from scratch. And it’s making sales.
The most important question here is not why didn’t the partnership work. It’s how did “launch five ideas” morph into “launch five ideas with other people.” I’ll need to do a little soul searching to answer that one. This is a generational problem. Like my father before me, Barba’s have more success when they go alone. Yet, they do everything they can to not be alone. Why is being alone scarier than failing for us Barba’s?
Another thing COVID has forced me to accept is that I can do a lot more alone than I thought I could and it’s way faster. Going forward I’m going alone.
Keeping the thumb in the photo #Wabi-sabi. -
Learning to take time off
I worked none stop while my family was away, yet I felt guilty for taking an afternoon off to go sledding with my daughter. I’m sure glad I did. It was one of the best days we had together in a long time. Hell, it was one of the best days I’ve period in a long time. COVID-19 continues to realign my priorities.
The snow was gone 12 hours after this photo was taken. -
Use what you have
Yesterday I bought the domain for the “all in the family” project. Now I need to set up our email for my partner and me.
Last year, I bought additional licenses and force people to use Microsoft Office. I had to write a blog post to help our sales guys connect Outlook to HubSpot. What a waste of time, especially since the product we sold was wrong. 2020, so many hard lessons.
But not in 2021. We use what we have. I will only consider using new software when what we have doesn’t work anymore.
Look, I don’t know if this is the right more, but the restrictions and doing less could reduce the pain of failure. Also, doing less cuts down on my tendency to feel good doing busy work.
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Bundling Tweets into a blog post
While chipping away at my goal of republishing 208 old blog posts this year I had an idea for a new product.
Many of my nearly three thousand tweet posts were created by Ping.fm. Individual tweets alone don’t have much value. But seeing one month’s worth of tweets in one post paints a good picture of your life.
It took me almost one hour to manually combine a month of tweets into one post. I wish there was a service that could automatically create a post from one month of tweets.
How many people on Twitter maintain a blog. How many people would pay to bundle one week/months worth of tweets into one post?
GOAL: Republished 90 old posts, 118 to go.
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How to set up HubSpot Sales on Outlook in the Browser.
This post I’m sending to my sales team. It’s a step-by-step how-to guide on setting up the HubSpot sales app on Outlook.com in the browser.
The HubSpot App allows us to:
- Add New Contact from Email Address
- Insert Emails sent and received to that contact in HubSpot
- Track email opens and clicks.
NOTE: If you’re not on my team, make sure your Microsoft admin has integrated HubSpot into your Microsoft 365 account.
Step 1:
After you create a new message click on the three vertical dots on the bottom.
Step 2
Click on the HubSpot Sales – Sales Tools
Step 3
Log in to your HubSpot account and pin the HubSpot app to your sidebar. Every time you create a new email you will see the app.
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One is None. Two is One. Three’s Company
After months of building a team and web app, it became clear that Gvbck was losing its pilot partner. Because of the nature of the product, it would be impossible to launch without one. It was a frustrating setback, but it taught me a valuable lesson; never launch a product with one partner.
One is None. Two is One. Three is the beginning of a company. If the partner goes away, you’re dead
If that one partner goes away, as in our case, you don’t have another one to fall back on. The product is dead if you can’t find another partner fast. You will find yourself recalibrating all your focus from building to selling overnight. Without a partner, you don’t need a product. With a new partner, you might need a different product. All that work could go to waste. Which brings me to the second reason you never launch a product with only one partner.
One partner makes you an agency
A pilot partner gives you an opportunity to learn what problems your product solves. If you only have one partner, you only know what problems that one partner has. With one partner you are acting as a volunteer agency. How do you know if other people have the same problem? With more partners, you learn which problems are important to more people.
Fool me twice, shame on me
Luckily, we found another launch partner pretty fast. It’s tempting to get back to work on finishing the product for launch, but I’ve made the executive decision we must have 3 partners before we start building. Three partners who want us to solve a specific problem. Two partners down, one more to go.
Conclusion
One is None. Two is One. Three is the beginning of a company. Looking forward to announcing who our three partners are soon.
