(in which we establish a Founder’s Journal, detailing the highs, lows, and facepalming disbelief of daily life experienced while building a small business in the AI space)
Over the years I’ve found myself using the title “The Beginning, Again” many times in my career during the launch of any new project. Because that’s what we do, right? We constantly start over in life.
Starting over can range from what I’m doing right here (building another small business), to taking care of our bodies (recommitting to fitness goals), to maintaining relationships (forgiving and forgetting one more time). Repeating cycles of mental constructs and physical activity are core features of our shared human experience.
So let’s get into another one together, yeah?
As the founder of YouBots, it’s valuable to the business to have me out in public doing some marketing. A couple problems with that, though:
1. I hate marketing and sales
2. We have a tiny team of four (just two full-time), and I have a ton on my plate
So here’s what I’m thinking instead: Let’s throw the traditional marketing strategy out the window and do something a little different.
I’m going to keep a Founder’s Journal on both LinkedIn and the YouBots blog. The goal will be to post consistently at least 3x/week, while limiting myself to 20-30 minutes per session.
The journal will be casual and honest – just me talking to you all about what’s going on in real time that day. If you know me at all, you know I won’t shy away from the truth; I’m not going to be sugarcoating everything. Running your own show has a lot of perks, but most of the time it’s pretty draining, and sometimes it’s downright scary.
I’ll talk about the whole experience: what’s exciting, what’s difficult, what’s going well, what’s breaking down again, and any other business stuff. Some days I’ll discuss my philosophical outlook on life and work and rest, some days I’ll spend taking a break and having fun building questionable humor websites.
Some people will hate the fact that I’m using LinkedIn as a public extension of a private journal, but have you seen most of the drivel on this platform? I’m pretty sure I’ll be doing the public a favor. Because guess what? I’m actually a pretty good writer. I may run an AI software company, but I don’t use AI to write for me (and if I ever do, I’ll tell you).
Even though some will frown and grumble, most will probably enjoy a breath of fresh air amidst the constant promotional posts and breathless hyperbole. I think it’ll be just fine, and even if a few haters show up, the mute button is there for a reason.
So come along on this journey with me, feel free to jump in and ask me anything along the way, and let’s see where this new road takes us. I promise not to use any more cliched metaphors like that, and I promise to make most of these posts much shorter.
We launched on Monday, February 24th. This is Day 10.
Let’s go.