week 46: i screwed up
there is always a way forward
thank you to over 11,000 of you who read this weekly and share with your friends and family for behind the scenes on building a million dollar business from scratch and beyond. i also include a personal note in the end so i am grateful that you let me do that without judgement.
building a company is a character building process.
much like marriage, it looks glamorous from the outside but from the inside it’s a battle.
it’s a constant process of refinement that only continue to either get better or worse.
there is no status quo in marriage or in business.
as we hit a million in revenue in our first year, i took my eye off the ball.
i got a little lazy and was too quick to delegate the things i should be doing.
the reality is that we are still in problem-market fit stage.
(pic from MOVE: the 4-question go-to-market framework)
this means, we haven’t hit the product-market fit stage across all the product offerings.
as a matter of fact, in a deal we closed last week, we invented a new product on the call… Boom!!!
the point is, i screwed up in at least 3 ways as i reflect back:
i didn’t lead from the front (i asked what i want from the team but didn’t lead)
i didn’t lead with empathy (everything is so new that i expected perfection and not process of ideation)
i didn’t anticipate change (everything is changing so how could we sell the same so quickly)
all in all, i learned big lesson in the last month that led me to apologize to my team.
so now what?
well, it actually feels good.
feels good to apologize - we are humans.
feels good to recognize - we are a team.
feels good to innovate - we are making history.
on a personal note, i don’t do many things well.
worst of it is manual labor.
few weeks ago, i got the wheels of my wife’s car cleaned and she got upset.
well, i get it.
as immigrant family, money is money and the value of hard earned things is more than paid unnecessary things.
so this weekend, i cleaned the wheels myself.
how did it feel?
well, not too good in the beginning but the more i did it, the better i feel.
in the world of daily tech, some tactile work is good, if not necessary.
this is not glamorous but the outcome is amazing.
leaderpoint: glamor is not in having success. glamor is in hard work.
the additional big upside is the vulnerability, listening, and willingness to learn; solid leadership right there :) I bet the conversations that led to this self-reflection were very valuable in the long game. When we can evolve together we build a special kind of resilience - but the leader has to be willing to evolve with his team which means doing exactly what you just did....
Always good to read this! It is always work in progress (we don't know everything and tend to get our biases to everything we do). Sometimes it is easy, most of the time it is hard - we just need to move forward - one step at a time