That was interesting (and painful)

That's why we ship an MVP first

Welp, over the last few weeks, I was talking a lot about Go-To-Market School Beta and offering a pretty incredible deal (IMHO) where people could get started working with me right away to get their startups launched and profitable.

After 2 weeks of promotion, the results were in and let me tell you - they weren’t pretty.

The beta signups came in 10x less than what we needed to actually qualify this program as viable on the market. I have subsequently cancelled the program and refunded members.

Mitigating risk is the whole reason we ship an MVP, but still…

But still… In retrospect, I poured way too much into that MVP.

It was only 1/3 done, but… between development and marketing requirements, that 1/3 consumed 10 weeks of my life (and at least $7k of capital - aka; my own money) that I will never get back and that did not help anyone. That doesn’t feel great.

Plus, anytime you pour your life into something - even if the launch goes swimmingly well - you’re going to experience a huge sense of loss over the parts of yourself that you put out and made vulnerable to the world. (if you don’t believe me, launch a few things and then let’s talk ;) ) That’s always painful.

Lastly, the entire flop exposed a huge amount of risk in my business model that I was previously in denial about. I think this is the most painful thing to be honest.

You can switch out offers, and you can take some financial losses - those things are generally easy to remedy in the short term… but when you identify flaws and risks that are central to the premises on which you’ve spent years of your life building. That’s a significant loss.

Why? Well because, you can switch out offers, and you can take some financial losses - those things are generally easy to remedy in the short term… but when you identify flaws and risks that are central to the premises on which you’ve been spending years of your life building. That’s a significant loss.

All of this said, over the past 1.5 weeks that I’ve been grieving this loss, some incredible life-changing truths have emerged.

Some light to guide the way

I am grateful for all of these struggles because these learnings are things that money can not buy and schools cannot really teach.

Truth 1 - Prioritize your own self first

As you may or may not know, we have a 5-month-old infant son and a 7-year-old daughter. Our baby still doesn’t crawl or sit up (he’s SMALL).

On top of caring for family, due to the c-section complications, I have been experiencing life-threatening medical events while seeking treatment (and dealing with major health fears along the way).

There could hardly be a worse time for me to start a membership.

But I had it in my mind that doing so would allow me to work directly with more people and I wanted that, so I pursued it at the cost of my health and relationships.

BAD MOVE… won’t do that again…

Truth 2 - All is not well in the world today, but it can be

If you’re reading this then you are probably living in a western country - and you know it firsthand, but: There are big problems that no one person can solve.

To name a few:

• Massive inflation

• Job losses

• Irresponsible release of AI technology (causing lots more job losses)

• Political turmoil

• Food and gas costs are going through the roof (and that’s not gonna end anytime soon) - we could chalk this one up to politics too.

I could go on… I think you get the point.

Unfortunately, hiding one’s head under a pillow is not an effective path forward in the face of these complex challenges.

I can’t fix them. No one person can.

But I can encourage you to look within and to focus on the things that are bringing you joy and fulfillment in your life today.

Focusing on what is working and what you are grateful for is a touch stone to better days, period.

I could share more but…

This email is already too long.

As you can see from my sending address today, I’ve moved over to Substack (Yay!!)

I’m playing everything by ear right now, but I do promise to keep emailing.

The subjects I’ll be covering within this Substack newsletter are Applied AI, Data Strategy, and Growth.

I am in discussions with major publishers about bringing all of my teachings and trainings onto their platforms, so I’ll still be able to continue helping people from within my community (bc helping people is a major driver for me, personally).

There is much to be announced soon in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, please hit reply and let me know - how often would you like to hear from me? Once per week? Three times per week? Once every two weeks?

Cheers,

Lillian