JFDI

A 16-post collection

Sign up for your own product

"You don't get a second chance to make a first impression."

If you work at a gym, you know where the changing rooms are.

If you’re joining a gym for the first time, and you’re heading in for your first session, everything is alien.

You don’t know where the changing rooms are, and if the signs don’t point you in the right direction, you’re lost.

When I signed up for a gym session recently, I felt totally lost and a little foolish, wandering around trying to find somewhere to get changed into my kit. I almost left out of sheer embarrassment before I plucked up the courage to return to the reception desk and ask.

Whether you build software, build physical products, own a restaurant, or run a gym, nothing beats using your service as a first-time user to find out how you can improve it.

It’s always great to get feedback from customers but sometimes they don’t tell you everything. Sometimes they may not even care as much as you do about the experience.

It’s easy to even get frustrated that customers don’t “get” the thing you’ve built. You’re so proud of certain elements you can easily get blinded from the areas you’ve overlooked.

A while ago, I gave a talk on user onboarding, and one of the recommendations was to sign up for your own product every week. I even paused to encourage the audience to put a recurring event in their calendars!

Several years on, I feel that suggestion is as relevant as ever, and it’s advice that’s easy for me to give and seemingly hard to follow.

When did you last sign up for your own product?

Reflect, recharge, and go

By the end of 2022 I was feeling exhausted. I desperately needed a break.

I'm uncertain if I really got a considerable break over Christmas — we hosted Christmas at our house for the first time, I cooked for eight people, and we headed up to Scotland for New Year celebrations.

It was fun, but it wasn’t entirely relaxing.

It was different, though — different to the usual schedule of work, the usual stress and the usual ups and downs of a working week.

Critically, I managed to reflect on 2022, and I spent some time thinking about 2023.

I’ve started January of this year with a few intentions:

  • Don’t eat meat (at least for January)
  • Exercise daily
  • Get to bed by 10pm
  • Wake up before 7am

We’ll have to check in on these as February rolls around, let alone January 2024. But I have intentions and I am feeling positive about all of them so far.

Upon further reflection though, I know I am guilty of a cycle — every January, I feel re-energised, I start afresh, I have great intentions, and I carry them out. I’ve even written on this blog about them (often I write when my energy is highest, too):

Perhaps my more profound realisation heading into 2023 is that even the greatest of intentions can be weighed down and held back — by external forces, by lack of energy, by drifting without realising.

Why don't I have any intentions as September rolls around? Why did my writing, my exercise, my routine fall off mid-to-late last year? Why does that happen almost every year?

In 2023, my most important intention is to not wait until December to reflect, recharge, and reassess myself.

There is too much I want to achieve in this life to let a month slip by.

I will take more time to check in with myself, to reflect on how I’m feeling, how I’m spending my time, and to recharge my batteries to make every day count.

Here’s to a fulfilling 2023.

The crippling fear of hitting “publish”

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” — Pablo Picasso

I’ve been feeling it increasingly — I’ll put a tweet together, a short article, maybe even a visual piece of work. I’ll be feeling pretty good about it, and then the time comes to hit “publish”…

That’s when the fear creeps in. What if this is rubbish? Is this going to offend someone? Will it be misunderstood? Will people judge me for it?

It’s been enough to make me undo all my work and not hit publish on countless occasions.

I know I’m not alone on this — even the best feel it to some degree whenever they’re about to publish their work.

I keep trying to tell myself, though: don’t let it stop you.

Usually, the worst thing that happens is no one cares. Everyone looks the other way and gets on with their lives.

No one cares as much about you and your work as you do.

With that in mind, I urge you (and my future self) to overcome that fear next time by hitting publish. It’s the fastest, most effective way to learn, iterate, and improve.

Episode 8 of Lost and Founder — How soon should you launch?

Lead Forms by GoSquared

This week we just launched a new product at GoSquared: Lead Forms.

Launches are always exciting, and every time we do a launch we learn from it, so I decided to focus this episode of Lost and Founder on the topic of launching.

As I’ve written in the past, I feel launching is a bit like inviting your friends or relatives over to your house. Inviting someone over forces you to get your house in order — to tidy, to prepare for a deadline, and to prioritise unfinished tasks.

When launching a product or a feature, or even launching a whole new business, it’s often difficult to know when to do it. You’re pretty much always going to launch too early or too late — from my experience, it’s almost impossible to launch “perfectly on time”.

If you’re getting ready to launch something, I hope this episode is helpful for you.

Actions / take aways

I’ve outlined some key actions and take-aways for those too busy to listen to the full thing:

  • Set a deadline for your launch — every time you do this you learn how to get better at setting deadlines.
  • Assign an owner if you're in a team — if more than one person “owns” a project, then no one actually owns it.
  • Be clear on your priorities — ensure everyone is aware of what is most important to the launch and the company.
  • If in doubt, optimise for speed — moving faster tends to solve more problems than it creates. Speed means you learn faster.

Subscribe for future episodes

If you haven't already, it'd mean the world to me if you subscribe to Lost and Founder wherever you get your podcasts — find all the links to subscribe here.

Thanks and see you next time!

Should you use a todo list?

My todo list today.

I’ve lived my life with a daily todo list for over 10 years.

In fact, I put a video together to help you get started with Things for managing your todo list.

I get a small dopamine hit whenever I check an item off my list. I have built into my muscle memory the keyboard shortcuts to record anything anyone mentions to me that I’ll need to action in the future.

But every day I still finish with items unchecked. It gets me down and it stresses me out.

Earlier this week, several people sent me this post on how a CEO manages their time and it made me question my obsessive todo list usage. Is it really helping me? Is it contributing to me feeling down? Is it actually holding me back from focusing my time on what I need to do?

For the last few days I experimented with deliberately blocking my time on my calendar for the important work I needed to focus on. I have dabbled with this approach in the past but kept one foot in the “todo list” camp and it didn’t stick.

What I found from a few days last week was eye-opening:

  • I was more conscious of the tasks I put into my calendar (everyone on the team can see my calendar if they want to view it)
  • I blocked time to focus – and this time was protected from meetings. People couldn’t book / invite me to anything that clashed.
  • It drove my awareness of how much time I need to spend on certain important projects – time I wasn’t dedicating before.
  • It made me realise I go into every day, and every week, with an overly optimistic assessment of what I can achieve, that ultimately leaves me feeling like I haven’t achieved enough by the end.

I intend to keep this approach up. I am not ready to drop my usage of Things yet – especially not for my personal life todos.

I’m interested to find out after another few weeks of using my calendar more deliberately if I can learn about the following:

  • How much important work can I do? Not just the urgent work.
  • Can I get better at communicating with others around me what I can / cannot achieve by certain dates?
  • Can I feel better at the end of each day knowing I've focused my time in the right places, and achieved more with my time?

The clearer I can be with myself, the clearer I can be with everyone around me, and the more I can help people achieve their own tasks and projects.

Let’s find out!


Update: in episode 10 of Lost and Founder I share what I've learnt from using my calendar instead of a todo list over the 3-4 weeks since writing this post. TL;DR: it's helping.

Finding time and making time

People often say “I don’t have time”.

  • I don’t have time to write a blog post.
  • I don’t have time to learn to draw.
  • I don't have time to play a masterpiece on the piano.
  • I don’t have time to start a business.
  • I don’t have time to cook.

We all have the time. We’re all given the same 24 hours in every day, and 7 days in every week.

It’s not the time that’s the issue.

Our circumstances, attitudes, environments, goals, and clarity – those are the things that vary.

If your goals are clear, if your environment encourages you to achieve those goals, if your circumstances can be adjusted to allow you time and space to work on your goals – then time… time is made.

  • You make time for writing a blog post – one sentence a day.
  • You make time for drawing – with an open sketchbook, and a pencil at the ready, one 5 minute drawing at a time.
  • You make time for that masterpiece by time-boxing 10 minutes at the piano each morning.
  • You make time to start that business by sharing the idea with one person tomorrow and getting their feedback.
  • You make time to cook by drawing up a meal plan tonight.

Next time you hear yourself saying “I wish I had time to do that” ask yourself how much you wish you had the time. If you want the time enough then it’s really the motivation, clarity, focus, environment, and other factors you’re lacking – the time will be made.

Launching is like inviting your friends over

For the last year, very few of us have had the chance to have anyone over to our homes, but I was recently casting my mind back to those happier times, and I made a connection in my mind.

I am not sure about you, but in our house, whenever we invite someone over, it’s always a deadline – a fixed point in time to get our house presentable.

I am not saying my house is a mess, but when people come over I want to present the best version of myself and my house to my guests. And when we don’t have guests, sometimes those standards can slip a little. The handful of cups on the kitchen counter. The stack of 5 letters on the kitchen table. The extra pair of shoes left out in the hall.

Having people over pushes me to tidy all these little things up – to wash the cups, to sort the letters, to hide the shoes.

In my mind, that’s exactly what launching / shipping does: you may not be ready, but you have to get your product or feature presentable – ready for others to experience it. It focuses you.

Who care where the shoes go, or whether the cups are in the dishwasher or hidden in the sink. What matters is the place looks good and feels warm and welcoming.

When shipping – who cares if the extra settings option can’t make the cut, or the secondary heading on that alert modal isn’t precisely following the style guide. What matters more than anything is you hit the launch date and ship.

Having a deadline (like knowing a friend is coming to visit) forces you to tidy, focuses you, and restricts you from tackling anything too ambitious. External judgement and validation can be a powerful motivator to prioritise.

Talk it through

When was the last time you talked someone through your product or website?

Try it now. Try talking through – even to yourself – how to do a specific action in your product.

Hard, isn't it?

I find this to be one of the best ways to quickly get a feel for usability problems, and to discover opportunities to make our products better.

If you can't talk it through simply, you probably haven’t simplified it enough.

Move fast

“A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin

I shared the above quote in my last piece on Silent Meetings, but it continues to be at the forefront of my mind.

I’m in the last year of my twenties, and I’ve been thinking a lot about time – it’s a rather limited resource.

The longer I’m on this planet, the more I realise that the time it takes to achieve things is very often an attitude or a viewpoint, rather than an immovable fact.

Somewhat proving this point is this list of “examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together” from Patrick Collison of Stripe.

Patrick’s list includes the first version of Amazon Prime (six weeks), the first iPod (approximately 290 days), and Disneyland (366 days).

This weekend I also read a profile on Elon Musk in Rolling Stone – this quote stood out to me (emphasis mine):

Beyond all this, most maddening or exciting for Musk’s employees, depending on which one you ask, is the time scale on which he often expects work to be done.
For example, one Friday when I was visiting, a few SpaceX staff members were frantically rushing back and forth from the office to the parking lot across the street. It turns out that during a meeting, he asked them how long it would take to remove staff cars from the lot and start digging the first hole for the Boring Company tunnel. The answer: two weeks.
Musk asked why, and when he gathered the necessary information, he concluded: “Let’s get started today and see what’s the biggest hole we can dig between now and Sunday afternoon, running 24 hours a day.”
Within three hours, the cars were gone and there was a hole in the ground.

Not everyone is comfortable moving fast, but I don’t think there’s any option when running an internet business: you have to move fast or you die.

When someone says something will take two weeks, you can either take them at their word, or you can challenge them to think: what would it take to achieve this in two days? What needs to change?

The folks at Basecamp made this point better than I ever could in this short chapter of their original book Getting Real – keep time and budget fixed, be flexible on scope.

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time. —Fred Brooks, software engineer and computer scientist

Speed isn’t the only thing that matters when running a business, but it’s often treated as optional, and it’s easily lost one hour at a time.

Hours add up to days. Days cause weeks to slip. Weeks drag out into quarters. Quarters impact entire years. And we don’t have many years to waste.

I ran the marathon

Today is Sunday 26th April – the date of the 2020 London Marathon. Except it's not happening today.

Last year, I ran the marathon – for the first time, and it was one of the best days of my life.

Before the memories of the day blur too much, I wanted to write them down. Perhaps someone else is thinking about taking part on this incredible day once the world returns to some form of normality.

Here's my story.


The build up

“Good luck! I’ll be watching from the pub.”

This was the first person I saw after leaving the house – a black cab driver – on my walk to East Dulwich station. What an appropriate way to start the most London of days – by bumping into someone with the most London of professions.

It was early. It was quiet. And it wasn't raining. Not hot, but also not cold. Perfect running weather.

It was eerily quiet – was it really the right day? Was this just a dream? Can I return to bed?

I had nothing but nerves. I could barely speak from the moment I woke up.

Should I drink more water?
Should I drink less?
Have I eaten enough?
Should I eat more?
I don't feel hungry! I don't want to be sick!
Will my top rub?
Will my knee hold out?
What if I trip?
Are my trainers going to be OK?
What if my timing chip doesn't work and my times don't get counted?
What if my bib number falls off?
Did I actually register everything OK?
What if I injure myself and have to pull out – my whole family are following me from the app?
Am I going to get there too early? Too late?

Once I reached the station – the platform was quiet, but a handful of other runners turned up. Clearly they've done this before. This is the correct day! This is the correct time.

When I arrived at London Bridge Station, the atmosphere became real – it was busy, despite being so early on a Sunday. People were shuffling around, following coloured flags to different platforms.

When I reached the top of the escalator up to the platform for the train to Maze Hill there were plenty of police around and lots of runners. The helicopter in the sky set me off – this is real. This is the London Marathon – and I am taking part in it.

Police were everywhere – looking after the runners, helping guide everyone to the right place. An immediate wave of positivity, of excitement, but also of collective nervousness diffused through the air.

London Bridge is where you must say goodbye to anyone you've been travelling with up until this point. You're on your own from here. I had to disconnect from the warm reassurance of Lauren. What I'd do to go and sit in a cafe and have a bacon roll right now...

The train journey vanished past, and before I knew it, we were at Maze Hill station.

The

Give praise

It’s so easy to take the hard work of others in your team for granted – to just expect people to do great work day in day out.

It’s also so easy for good deeds to go unnoticed, and to simply say “thanks” and move on with your day.

But think about the last time someone specifically spoke to you to tell you how much they appreciated something you did. It felt good, didn't it?

Being aware of what you think and what you actually express to others will likely cause you to realise that others around you aren’t aware of how much you appreciate them.

At GoSquared, for a long time we’ve put specific time aside each week to share thanks and praise within the team.

Every Friday it’s the best way to start the weekend – knowing others on the team appreciated something you did.

Next time you’re wondering whether or not to call someone out to thank them in front of the team, don’t wait, don’t hesitate, just do it.

What is your top priority?

It’s important to know what you’re going to do today. It's important to know what you’re going to do next.

It’s also important to know what you’re not going to do today, this week, this month, or ever.

But establishing your set of your priorities doesn’t happen by chance or by accident. If it does, then they’re not priorities, it's just a list of things to do.

To be clear on your priorities you also need to think about what’s most important in your business, in your social life, in your family, in your relationship, and to you personally.

Is figuring out your priorities a priority right now? Maybe it’s time to make it one.

If you can sell one, you can sell two...

My sister recently started her own business – selling beautiful, handmade, refillable candles.

I'm incredibly proud of her achievements so far, and I can't wait to see where her business goes next.

The whole process has been a huge learning curve for me though – having run GoSquared for so many years, it's refreshing to see a business from inception again.

One key misperception I see with founders just starting out, is that they hold too much back for too long – they wait until everything's perfect before sharing their creation with the world. They believe there will be a sudden influx of customers that will buy their perfect product the moment they launch.

Even for established businesses, having a queue of willing customers is a challenge – for a fresh new enterprise, it's as good as impossible.

Don't hope or even plan for the flood of customers. Time spent planning for that is time you could spend elsewhere.

Stop perfecting.

Just sell one thing to one customer.

Then do it again.

And then again.

You have to start one by one. You'll learn a lot this way, and you'll be making progress each and every day.

If you can sell one candle, you can sell two. And if you can sell two you can sell many, many more.

Running the marathon

On Sunday of this week, I’ll be running the 2019 London Marathon.

My primary feeling right now is fear, followed closely by nervousness, and a distant third is excitement.

I’m running for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – the RNLI – they’re the charity that saves lives at sea. They’re like a fourth emergency service in the UK, except they’re all volunteers. They’re the people that come to save you if you are in trouble at sea or in a river like the Thames in London.

This post is less about trying to persuade you to donate – although if you are feeling generous or wish to show your support in any way, I would appreciate it more than you can imagine. See my JustGiving page to follow along.

The marathon is a distance I have never run before. Doing this is a venture into the unknown – will my body be able to cope? Will I make it to the start line without an injury? Will I be feeling 100% on the morning of the big day? Will I need to go to the bathroom mid-race? Will I eat enough of the right food to ensure I have energy to get me around? Will I hit the infamous “wall” unexpectedly and struggle to finish? Am I worrying about everything that could possibly go wrong?

The only thing certain to me right now is this: I would never have trained or run this far unless I had committed to entering for a place in the London Marathon.

If I can take out just one thing from this experience it’s that you simply don’t push yourself to your limits unless you have a really big hairy audacious goal to aim for.

And there aren’t many goals as big, hairy, or audacious as running 26.2 miles.

Just a few years ago I had barely run 5km. I hated running at school. And now, in just a few days I’ll be starting a race across an absurd distance.

The whole experience has had me thinking: is there an equivalent to the marathon in other parts of my life? How can I push the boundaries of my own abilities in other areas?

Whether it’s running or not – is there the equivalent of a marathon you can commit to to push the boundaries of what you think you can achieve?

Thanks to everyone who has supported me so far – whether with advice, suggestions, or donations. It means the world to me.

See you at the starting line!

Create more. Consume less.

The start of the new year always provides time to think deeply about what you’ve achieved (or failed to achieve) in the last year, and where you can do better.

Life can be short – when a new year comes along it reminds me of everything I still want to achieve.

For me, at this point, it comes down to two areas: create more, and consume less.

Create more:

  • Art. Draw more.
  • Writing.
  • Photography.
  • Time for exercise.
  • Good habits for money management.
  • Happy memories.


Consume less:

  • Social media.
  • News.
  • TV.
  • Plastic.
  • Poorly made, short-life products.
  • Meat.

Best of luck with your own goals for 2019.

Jump in at the deep end

I was in central London doing some last minute shopping today, and I debated getting the Tube back with all my bags, or being lazy and jumping in an Uber.

It's been a knackering week, so I opted for the Uber.

But I'm so glad I made this choice – I ended up having an extensive chat with the driver who had moved here from India to become an IT consultant.

He's a freelancer so is keen to get more work, hence why he's driving for Uber on the side. Naturally, we got onto the subject of building a personal "brand" – or at least, finding ways to get people to notice you.

We were talking about starting a blog and how he's not written in a long time. I could hear him finding reasons to hold off on writing – he wasn't ready.

But I hear this all the time – "I'm not ready". When will you be ready? How will you ever be ready?

You will never be ready unless you start.

So I started pushing him to just write. Just Do It!

You have to just start, with the knowledge your first attempt will probably suck.

Then he told me a story that really resonated with me: he explained how when he lived in India he desperately wanted to learn to swim.

The pool was deep at the deep end – 16 feet deep! Because it had a diving board.

He would walk around and walk around and become increasingly nervous, just staring at the depths of the water.

He'd stand back and watch as others swam up and down, growing more and more frustrated.

Until one day he jumped in (at the shallow end), and just started to try.

He kept trying and gradually swimming further and further from the edges until he could fully swim.

This simple story just emphasises so much of what holds us back from doing new things – fear. And that fear leads us to push back the idea of even starting.

You can’t learn to swim unless you jump in and try.

Whatever you're hoping to start in the new year – don't wait. Just start. Jump in.

Photo by Artem Verbo on Unsplash.