(This is an excerpt of a monthly email I send - a monthly review/retro of how we did for May 2020. I send this to stakeholders, friends & colleagues to keep you updated, and also so I can stay accountable!)

May 2020

I took 10 days off this month.

I’m not totally sure what happened, but I think it was burnout. I was stressed, unmotivated, and had an overall feeling of indifference.

These 10 days off were the best thing I could have done, and I’m so happy I did it - it gave me time to think, reflect, and recharge.

But most importantly it gave me insights into a huge mistake I’m making. The mistake: I’m not focusing on the business opportunity that is clearly working - Starter Story.

Years ago (before Starter Story), my dream was to build a SaaS business - which is what attracted me to building this new product Pigeon over the last year.

But the writing is on the wall - Starter Story is the better business. I’ve realized it’s where I need to put all of my energy. Over the last year, I’ve been splitting my time across both projects, putting crazy hard work into Pigeon and seeing menial results, and putting in less mindshare into Starter Story yet seeing really great results!

Over the past months we have been testing out some more monetization at Starter Story, and I’m excited to say that we generated nearly $6,000 additional gross revenue in May through premium content + testing some minor tweaks to the site. Big thanks to the team for all their hard work to make this happen!

I got wind of these numbers during my 10 days off, and it got me thinking even more. Starter Story is such a huge opportunity with so much more room to grow and become a bigger business.

But it’s been tough / taken me some time to actualize this. I often saw Starter Story as my own “starter” business and thought it would lead me to some bigger opportunity… but in reality Starter Story is the greatest opportunity! I just need to look at it that way.

Here’s a theory I’ve been developing: Starting a business is not about “you”. In the beginning, it often is about “you”, because you want freedom, money, and status - but that eventually wears off and then you’re building and growing a real business - in which long-term success has little to do with “you”.

It shouldn't be about building the business idea around what I want, it’s about building the business that the market wants. I don’t think it’s wrong or bad to build a business you want, but my theory is that the duty of the entrepreneur to have a firm vision but be flexible and compromising in the implementation of that vision.

My vision has always been to inspire entrepreneurs and help them run and grow their businesses. Time to focus on the most efficient ways of doing that.

In other words, I wasn’t being self-aware. I became too hard-headed and attached to the idea of building an app/SaaS because it’s what I wanted to do. But it’s not about me!

So, for the foreseeable future, we’ll be putting all of our energies into Starter Story and I’m really excited about the future! Starter Story is only going to grow faster now!!

May Numbers

- Monthly revenue (accrual): $9,145 (+0%)
- Traffic: 559K pageviews (-20%)
- Content published: 93 (-11%)
- Net new email subscribers: 1,744 (+86.32%)

Plan / Goals for June

In June, we will focus on content - delivering more higher quality and diverse content for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

We are trying to figure out more about what readers want - and one of those things is definitely “business ideas”. We believe readers really want content that helps them find a business idea - we’ve been experimenting with articles like this (performed very well).

So this month we will continue to experiment with more content and projects around “business ideas” - such as (1) research-focused articles “this new industry trend is about to explode” (2) small business idea database “find your next idea” and (3) business idea how-to guides - all with lots of data and a more analytical approach than other publications.

With my newfound time & energy, I’ll also be writing a lot more and contributing to this growth in content too! 

Our other big goal is focusing more on email marketing, mainly (1) higher quality newsletters (2) collecting more emails (3) nurturing sequences (4) targeted/personalized emails and trigger-based emails and (5) sending limited-time offers to buy the subscription.

Goals:

1. Pieces of content published: 150
2. Email collection rate: 10%
3. Subscription impressions: 20%
4. New customers: 2% (as % of subscription impressions)

Thanks for reading!

Here's an awesome video that every entrepreneur should watch.

That kind of attitude and transparency is severely lacking in startup land.

Why? Because nobody wants to hear that this entrepreneurship thing really takes 20+ years.

This video has the opposite effect on me. 

This video makes me excited about the idea of building businesses for at least the next 20 years - I'd be 50 years old!

Why? Because I truly love doing it!

If you injected $1M into my bank account right now, I can't really imagine I would change too much. 

I'd probably just keep building and learning with my online businesses and writing this daily blog, and would still keep my living expenses really low. This stuff makes me happy.

I actually got lucky with some stock options (startup I worked at) and now have $100K+ to my name. It's not a ton, but it's the most money I've ever had, by a lot ($50K in debt a few years ago).

However, this money didn't change anything about my day-to-day - I'm still working my ass off on the same thing. 

I think that's a sign that I'm doing the right thing.

In my life, I've picked up a lot of hobbies and professions, and while they were exciting in the beginning, I always felt like I conquered them and hit a "ceiling" and got bored.

Entrepreneurship is different. There is no ceiling. There is no "top" - you can always get better and improve. You will never get bored. And I truly enjoy it - at a deep level.

That's what will keep me coming back for 20+ years.

Over the next few days, I’ll be writing more about my think week, and some of the things I thought deeply about. Here are some.

—

Does time == money?

Much of the guru advice out there is about maximizing your time, maximizing your day, and being the most productive person you can be.

Productivity is an addiction - it feels amazing - it’s something we all chase - certainly something I’ve chased in every job, startup, and project I’ve worked on.

We all want to be more productive.

For example, if you’re a full-time software engineer, what is an example of a good, productive day? 

After you code for 6 hours straight, you feel like a boss, like you conquered the day.

However, 99% of the time, I believe this is unproductive.

The only way that would be productive is if you knew with 100% certainty you were working on the right thing, with the exact right specs. We all know this is almost never true.

Unless you’re a software engineer at Facebook working on scaling emojis, those 6 hours were likely an utter waste of human energy.

How much of our work/code that we've written is still being used today? Maybe 10% (for me).

So, are you sure you’re working on the right thing?

You might be 80% sure, but that’s not enough.

To be successful, you need to be able to (1) become self-aware of this and (2) learn to ask the right questions:

Even if it’s not in your job title, asking these questions makes you a better human and will lead you to more success and happiness in life, in your career and personal life.

Chasing the feelings of productivity is selfish, and it’s something I’ve suffered from a lot. 

As a programmer, I hated meetings and being interrupted. But looking back, those meetings were far more valuable than I knew at the time. 

I wish I was more proactive about bringing these questions up, because often, nobody even asks them.

As entrepreneurs, it is our duty (and a pre-requisite of success) to constantly ask these questions

Asking these questions leads to running experiments and evolution in your business - if your business doesn't evolve it will die.

When you stop asking these questions, you become comfortable - which is the most dangerous place to be if you’re running a company.

Time does not equal money, it’s far more valuable. But it’s less about how you spend your time, and more about how you take back your time. 

Don’t maximize your day, maximize your decade.

I just finished watching True Detective again - one of my favorite shows.

Starting a business, or rather being an entrepreneur, is like being a good detective (in the movies).

To crack the case, you must have an open mind, and you can't go into it wanting to be "right".

Your own personal bias and "gut feeling" can lead you down the long road, but it is also really important.

I think that goes for anything in life, being a great politician, lawyer, doctor, etc.

It's not about being right, it's about cracking the case and serving justice.

Being right is ego - and ego will limit us from being the best at anything in life.

I took almost two weeks off.

Two Thursdays ago, I just got in my car and drove.

I started in SLC and drove to a new town every day.

Every morning when I woke up, I went on my computer and picked a new city, and a new hotel.

I spent most of my time driving, which led to a lot of thinking, and a lot of new ideas and what's planned for my future.

I plan to write more about this, but I just wanted to write a short thing and announce that the daily journal is back.

And if you're someone considering taking some time off, please please please do it - more to come.

Approaching the last couple days of my think week.

Going to go offline for the remaining few.

Last night I had to fix an urgent issue for a customer, which led to checking email, Twitter, and a myriad of other things.

I want to end this time off on a good note, so I'll be going fully offline for the next couple days.

I just wanted to write this so I can mentally commit to that.

I'm now a full week into my think week.

The first couple days were weird, had a lot of anxiety and wondering what I'm doing with my life.

After 3 days in, I had a lot of "aha" moments. Fueled with energy and excitement about the future.

Now, I've hit a bit of a downturn. A lot of boredom, not so much energy, and a bit of sadness.

When I started this, I wanted to read 1000 books and watch classic movies. But what I usually do is watch YouTube and Netflix and sneak in some Twitter.

I wish I was the type of person that could get "lost in books", but I can't.

The important thing though, I am not doing any work, and I am not checking email, at all.

I haven't pushed any code, or looked at my codebase for over a week now, other than to fix one super urgent bug that a paying customer had.

I thought about checking my email this morning, but decided against it.

I know I have some stuff in there that will feel really urgent and stressful.

I have some things in place so that if there is something super-crazy urgent, I will be notified and I can take action.

When I checked my email on Tuesday, it turned into an extra 1.5 hours of work.

Now that I'm in the boredom stage of my think week, I'm antsy to get back. But a part of this feels like I'm not ready yet, like, I don't feel like I really know what I'll work on when I get back.

One thing I do is create "master plans" - for this think week, I'm making a concerted effort NOT to make a "master plan" for when I get back.

These "master plans" never work because they are rooted in hypotheticals and things you might be influenced by in books/podcasts/what you heard from someone else. Right now, I'm driving around the United States - any plan/ideas that I come up with are probably not going to work.

The only thing that is going to work is if I can come back to work with a new mindset and way of thinking that I didn't have before - a new way to approach every day that helps work become more exciting and where I can get out of bed in the morning feeling like I did in the early days of starting my own side project. I miss that.

Change is the only constant. I have to change myself, my outlook, my ideas, etc if I want to move forward faster and with more excitement.

Sitting around and doing "more of the same" does not invoke change and it does not lead to happiness for me.

If there's one thing that is true about the last 29 years of my life - it's that I've constantly changed and adapted for the better.

When challenges were presented to me, I rose to the challenge - this always led to overall happiness and fulfillment.

There are other times when I didn't rise to the challenge - and I regret those moments. I only regret them because, eventually, I rose to the challenge, but it took longer.

Because, for me, I'm the type of person that eventually has to get over those challenges - I can't live with myself if I don't.

The part that I struggle with is when it takes weeks/months/years/decades to actually accomplish these things, when I know it could have been shorter.

I'm reading a book right now about startups. One of the main themes is that failing at a startup should not be about the learning experience.

The more important thing is to have those learning experiences happen at the fastest velocity possible. 

So, in other words, fail fast. Ask yourself how you can fail as fast as possible. Look deeper into why it's taking 6 months / 1 year / 3 years to fail at one idea, when you could fail at 10 ideas in that same time frame.

Because anything else is just wasted time. We can make the excuses that "we learned something" and that makes us feel like "we're OK with failure" which is, definitely, a good thing and par for the course on your first startup try.

But failing like that is "failing blindly" - if someone asks you why you failed, your answer will be rooted in hypotheticals and blurry logic. There are ways to fail faster with clear understanding (based on numbers, talking to real people, etc) - and I think the hurdle between failing blindly and this is our ego and our fear of failure.

One thing that's holding me back is my stubbornness and my unwillingness to "compromise my vision".

Maybe other entrepreneurs can relate to this, but I'm afraid that changes I make to my product / strategy / customers will lead me to build something that strays far away from my "vision".

I'm scared of that because I don't want to build a business that I "hate".

I'm scared of becoming that founder who's (years later) depressed, and slogging away at a business that he/she never intended to build.

So, to prevent that, I think I take actions (or inaction) that negatively impact the success of my business as a potential sacrifice for my happiness later.

I think that, in a lot of ways, this is a good thing. All founders must make sacrifices like this.

But I think this logic is flawed.

The worry should never be about the "vision" - because the "vision" has nothing to do with the implementation.

If your vision is to revolutionize the hotel industry, then don't worry about how you will do that. You might have an idea, but is it good? You can't decide that. Only the market can.

Test that idea, and then change it - test more ideas. You're still following your "vision" of revolutionizing the hotel industry, but you're just finding a better way to do it.

As I learn more about being an entrepreneur, I think a lot about this.

When I look back on some of the reasons why I wanted to start my own business:

- to build cool things, 
- to create something out of nothing, of my own,
- to get fame, status & make money, 
- to own my time & freedom

I'm starting to realize that the road to success has little to do with those things. Those things are more of the "outcome" - they are just some of the awesome things that might happen if you are successful.

If you let the "how" (your ego and preconceived notions) get in the way of the "what" (the vision), then it might break your business and/or cause you to burn out.

I'm the biggest offender of this, and it's what is causing me (and my business) pain.

Picking the most effective "how" is the job of the entrepreneur. I think that's probably how VC's and investors judge entrepreneurs. Not on their idea, but on their ability to identify the best "how".

"My way" (or "your way") might be a good place to start, but it won't be where I will end - if I want to make a bigger change than myself.

But it is also important to balance this. The flip side of this is the greedy entrepreneur that starts with a good business and eventually develops a pyramid scheme.

That's where the vision comes in. Don't compromise the vision, but be ego-less when it comes to how you accomplish that vision.

I just got off of the phone with my mom.

She's going to buy a house - and was pretty serious about it over the last few days.

She sent my family a text today about how she won't be moving forward with that house, for a bunch of reasons that seemed trivial.

I'm pretty sure I know the real reason why she didn't want to buy the house - because she didn't love the house. But once she got further into the process of making an offer, it probably got harder for her to say that.

I just know my mom really well and this is a thing she does - she probably didn't want to let down the realtor, or the seller, or whatever. But it doesn't matter, that's not the point of the story.

After I hung up the phone (just now), I realized I did this thing that I always do - I had to be right about my theory. I had to try and "get it out of her" that she didn't really love it, and that she would have made it work if she really loved the house.

Every time I do this I feel horrible. What does it matter if I'm right? Especially in this scenario.

But why do I do this? I think it's because I'm self-concious because I do the same thing as my mom (in some other aspect of my life).

I make up excuses that dodge the root of the problem, maybe in business, maybe in my relationships.

Making up excuses not to do something is a weakness, and when I see other people do it, I want to call them out on it. But deep down, I only see this as a weakness in others because I suffer from it the worst.

If I didn't suffer from it - I probably wouldn't care / it probably wouldn't have even crossed my mind.

I have a friend who often talks about his brother and how he's unhappy because he didn't take enough risks after college (finding the right career, etc). The reality is... my friend is so critical of his brother because he's actually self-conscious about his own adversity to risk.

He admits this though, and I think that's the most important part.

Sometimes we don't care about being right - but I think that usually means we're just indifferent, or we've "solved" that area of our own life.

For me, a good example is diet. I don't eat much meat, but I also don't care if you eat a steak in front of me. And I'm never going to argue with anyone about the benefits of a vegetarian diet. I just know that's what I like.

I do know people that will argue/talk for hours about being vegan, or why you should only eat meat, etc. The question I think about is "why do they care so much to impose their own personal choices on others?". 

For people like this, there's something deeper that causes them to be this way. 

Why do they have to be right?

I don't want to be right anymore. 

For the things I'm fiery passionate about, I don't want you to think I that I'm trying to be right. Because when I do this, I just look like an asshole.

You can't change people. You can only change yourself.

If I can let go of this, my life will be 100x better. Working on it.

It took 3 days, but now I’m starting to get some clarity.

I need to extend this time off for another week, I think. Keep driving, keep thinking.

What is the root of this burnout? When people ask, I say a lot of things to make excuses for myself.

But the root is in my new business that's not doing very well.

It has been really hard.

I think it’s been hard for a number of reasons:

How to fix this?

The first thing I want to say is that I won’t be giving up. 

I won’t be giving up because:

I just need a better framework to make decisions and change these things.

It's especially hard as a solo founder. Instead of having someone to bounce these things off of - you must go internally & look inside to make change.

This can be a good thing because you can make change without friction (w/o fighting with your cofounder). But this can be a bad thing if you simply never change.

And I won't change unless I can become more self-aware, more open to feedback, and most importantly, letting go of my ego.

Instead of thinking “this is how it will be in 5 years”, think about “how can I find the right customers, talk to them, and get more feedback and change and tweak things”.

How do I build a framework for this?

I already have a baseline. Starter Story - it’s a massive benefit. Income coming in every month, lots of users, and a platform to work and try and experiment on new things.

Just like DHH and Jason Fried at Basecamp - they have a successful product and personal following and ways of thinking - but they constantly are evolving and releasing (and often failing) at many products.

I need to be more on the ground floor, open to feedback, and finding the right customers.

I need a framework.

Been watching some videos on “The Lean Startup” - and I really like some of the ideas there. The “Build, Measure, Learn” idea as well the “pivot or persevere” idea.

What I need is to dig deeper there and actually try out these frameworks - to be more on the ground floor. I did this early days with Pigeon and actually made a ton of progress - but as of late I haven’t.

More to come.

What do I want out of life?

I’m 29 years old. I haven’t figured out what I want to do with my life.

I don’t have a “thing” that I’m passionate about. I want to have a mission in life, a North Star, something that can drive me.

I’ve been watching “The Last Dance” (great show highly recommend), and for Michael Jordan it was basketball and winning championships.

What is it for me? 

I feel like I’ve been stuck in this place, for years, where I don’t know what I want out of life.

It’s always changing. One year I want one thing. The next year I want another. Music, college, a degree, corporate, engineer, starting a company.

There are some things that I want out of life, for sure, like freedom and autonomy. But it doesn’t feel specific enough.

I know that I want to create - but I can’t really be sure about much more than that.

But I think that’s OK. It’s never so black and white.

I don’t think that I can be so specific. Only in the end will I know what it is that I accomplished.

I'm starting my think week early.

Need to just take a break and get out.

I just drove four hours away from Salt Lake City, to a remote town in Utah.

I'm staying in a hotel, by myself.

No work, no email. Just thinking, and reading, and watching old movies that I torrented.

I'm not sure where I'll go tomorrow, but I'm thinking I'll go to the Grand Canyon. It's about 6 hours away.

Too much of a funk.

Taking the weekend off. Off from all internet, work, email, everything.

Planning on doing a "think weekend".

Inspired by this.

Will report back soon. I will probably still write on here.

If you've been reading my posts lately I've been in a funk.

I chatted with Harry Dry today a bit about the situation.

Maybe I need to do more "fun things" - more side projects, more YouTube videos, more personal stuff.

But at the same time, when I do those things, it feels like a disservice to my customers, the people that work for me, and to myself.

One thing that Harry reminded me is that I have this thing right now called time.

When I had my full-time job and was grinding on Starter Story, all I wanted was to own my own time.

Now I own my own time. I don't have a boss. I can do anything I want.

Yet, I'm taking that for granted now.

I have to remember all of the work that got me here. I don't have a fucking 9 to 5 job!

Now that I own my time, am I becoming lazy? Or maybe being lazy is the "next step" when you own your own time? 

Maybe being lazy and having less to do is what is supposed to happen?

But I don't want to be lazy. I want to achieve big things. So much more that I want to do.

Maybe I'm becoming complacent? I don't want to be complacent.

Harry had a great idea. Take a full day off. Recharge completely.

Do more of the things I "love" - or learn to "love" the things I don't, yet.

It's unlike me to ever feel this way - so I think it might be a fluke. Time heals all.

I'm in this really weird spot right now, which I've mentioned in previous posts.

What next?

What I mean by "tweaking" now is just that the things that feel important to work on are a bit boring... Content marketing, onboarding optimization, looking at analytics a lot, outsourcing, etc.

But the bigger issue is that I'm not really that content with where I'm at with the business from a financial perspective.

So that's why I think this might be a sign of "burnout" - because I do know for sure that the business has so much room to improve. Usually, these kinds of things would be running through my mind, but lately they are not.

Maybe it's because of the quarantine? We've been locked up for so long... Too much of the same. Too much of nothing.

Deep down there's this yearning for "something new" - like a new project, or new business, or maybe even something new in my personal life... I don't know. 

I do know that I need to be careful with that kind of thinking. I can't jump around for my whole life.

Took pretty much the whole weekend off. 

It's been hard to find "work" to do. I don't feel so motivated.

Maybe I'm burnt out... Or maybe not working so much is a good thing.

Usually these kinds of things are just phases for me - sometimes I go through periods of low productivity and focus and direction...

Great video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtZfTpV4KPE

Came across this video.

It's the story about how a guy got into YouTube, eventually went viral, and how that changed his life.

The part that really struck me is this part.

This is something I've also experienced.

I remember back when I had my full-time job - I thought that when I got to 1,000 email subscribers, I would be happy. Or when I got 100K monthly visitors on the website, or when I made enough money to quit my full-time job.

But when I reached these numbers-based milestones, I didn't feel satisfied! By the time I got there, the novelty had already worn off and I was already thinking about the next "big number".

New Joe Rogan interview.

Elon Musk is *already* the greatest entrepreneur that ever lived, and he's just getting started.

What I love about Elon is that he is a company builder for life. Even after building successful companies beyond our wildest dreams, he is still building companies.

In this interview, he mocks Warren Buffet as being a bore - and alludes to his "job" being dull - staring at paperwork and deciding whether he should invest in Coke or Pepsi this year (paraphrasing).

It's true though - some people choose to work a lot less hard and make a lot more money. And that's fine.

But Elon is not interested in being an "investor", and he's not interested in being rich. He's interested in changing the world. That's why he put all his own money on the line to build his companies, years after he was already "rich".

If you ask me, that's what life is about.

Life is not about "becoming a lawyer", "getting an exit", or "making passive income like Warren Buffett". We can all get these things with relative ease before we're 30 if we wanted.

But what about after that? After you become that lawyer, doctor, or become a millionaire. What's the next challenge?

Elon's answer? Going to Mars.

In a world full of growth hacks, marketing funnels, etc, we forget the real key to building a business - talk to your customers.

Do: 

Don't:

I came across this blog post - it reminded me that I need to keep talking to my customers. 

It's cool that someone signed up and paid for Pigeon today and I haven't had to have any interaction with them - but that shouldn't be my mentality. I should be reaching out to them - getting to know them - asking them "why Pigeon?".