The Tale of big expectations

"Don't get me wrong. If I'm looking kind of dazzled. I see neon lights, whenever you walk by." - Don't Get Me Wrong - The Pretenders

Ahh a new year. A time for rebirth, new objectives, resolutions and the resulting big expectations. I held off with this latest post because I wanted to avoid the crap people post at this time of year. You know the stuff.

• New Year, New You!
• Make 20** the year you win.
• How this new year could be the making of you.

What absolute rubbish!

Do you need a whole new you in business? Were you planning on 20** not being your year to succeed? Were you strategizing it being a failure? Of course you weren't.

I've decided not to make any New Year resolutions. I don't believe in them. Not because I don't want to be better or do more but because I don't think one arbitrary line in the sand will be the platform to achieve greatness. It's phoney and fake because it's too aspirational and not based on facts. More often than not it leads to disappointment.

Anyone who has met me knows I am a big lad, and by "big" I mean 6ft3 but also fat. I have struggled with my weight all my life and for many years I started the new year diets and I crashed and burned. January is the most miserable time to try anything and expect success. It's grim. Nobody goes home in January, in the freezing cold and thinks a salad is the dinner of choice. We need warm, comforting things for our body, our wellbeing but also for our souls.

I found that if I was going to lose weight small, healthy changes this time of year was reasonable and I focussed on not putting on weight. That meant that when I got to spring and the weather was better, the sun was out and I felt good from my achievable wins I could focus on losing weight. I could get out more, I could see more people and I could eat salads without feeling like it's cold comfort. It worked.

My diet analogy is relevant to start-up life because, as mentioned before, things slow down at Christmas. We're now in the New Year and in startup land it's tempting to release and reveal the new "Grand Strategy" but like the proverbial diet is this the best time? I worry that we set great goals for a new year and January is a tough time for growth. It's cold and chilly out there and business can feel the same. We're excited about what's to come for us, but is this the point to force an agenda? Probably not, and that can bust those expectations and kill that momentum.

At this time of year I find customers are catching up on the stuff they dumped in December ("I'll do it in the New Year"), focussing on their own goals, focussing on their own end of financial year budgets and getting things ready for spring.

If things are slow then now is the time to do your groundwork at home, get the bits and pieces you need in place and maximise the time so that when business Spring comes you can bounce into the market ready to rock. Still do your customer outreach, still do your sales, still build your business where you can. Just don't set silly big objectives. Enrich your soul and stock up on what you need for that strategy and be prepared.

How am I implementing this approach? Well Foundry Fuel is in Beta and I am testing it out in Feburary. Early in the month we will be doing a trial event as part of Founders Night in the Ormeau Labs. This will be small in scale but allow me to try the platform with real users in a real setting. This will be followed up by an event towards the end of the month in Dublin. Sure I could be aiming for bigger things. Massive events with massive turnouts but that could lead to massive disasters and impact the reputation of the platform. I also want to get some feedback. Find out what works and what doesn't. Make small changes and drive things forward. All going well, come Spring, when everyone is up for meeting up again, we can do bigger events, confident that the platform is delivering where it needs.

Build it slowly and feed your soul and come Spring, we'll be ready to rock.

We've got this
G