Sometimes things just don’t go according to plan.

And this week, there was a ton of things I wanted to happen, which didn’t.

But, I am reflecting to find where perhaps time was wasted, and where it perhaps was put to good use.

Welcome back, this is Week 16 of The Unicorn Founder, and I’ll be shaking things up a bit with the formatting of this email.

The idea is to provide a bit more of a holistic view of the past week, dipping into the one to follow.

This Week’s Update Overview:

• 🖊️ The Recap: Take a broad look at what went right, what went wrong, and what sort of things have been top-of-mind.

• 😤 The Current Obstacle: The incredible advantage of a website that converts, and the incredible disadvantage of one that doesn’t.

• 🕺 The Next Week Ahead: What I’m implementing next, the goals I’m setting, and the mindset going into the next week.

🖊️ The Recap:

Entering & Exiting The Week

I had high hopes of doing a few things:
1. Getting another $600+ of hard revenue through the door.
2. Productive & positive meetings with 4 major South African call centre and BPO (business process outsourcing) companies.
3. Completing the first version of the market-ready website.
4. Submitting YC application

We sort of almost hit those those goals:
1. We didn’t get more revenue this week.
2. We did have 4 very good meetings with those company CEOs.
3. The website is 95% complete.
4. The YC application is 95% complete.

The call centre/BPO guys are more of a longterm, collateral strategic move — our core focus is still on the real estate industry — but because they are such big deals, I’m investing in the relationship early so that by the time they’re ready to pull the trigger, we’re also in a position to add them into the structure.

→ Just trying to think forwards a little bit further than the next few weeks.

🧠 Realisations

1. Focus

   I have been of the mindset that I want to get real-world results (revenue) as fast as possible and so I have been extremely fast to reply to inquiries, current clients, and general issues that crop up.
   → Which is good to serve clients quickly and fine to be on the ball.
   

   BUT
   
   I have found that it actually diminished my ability to move the needle forward with deep-work mode not being activated.
   And the trade-off actually hasn’t been worth it.
   So, now I am setting time-blocks for my day where I cannot respond to issues, clients, etc. because I am busy building.

   → Pushing me to delegate versus take it all on myself.

2. Routine

   I went through a phase where I was hyper-rigid with my routine — stressing me out if the routine wasn’t “perfect”.
   Since then, I have very much realised:
   → Routine is made for us, not us for routine.

   
   However, I do acknowledge the unbelievable power of it.
   And so, for the last year and a half I have been somewhat a lot less rigid with routine, but now I am buckling down on routine again.

   I have one priority: speed, growth, and results on an exceptional level.

   → With everything there is a cost:reward ratio and I am accepting the cost because I know what I can get out of it.

3. Work Visualisation

   One thing I have hated the most is when I have sat at my desk for hours, just to reflect and realise I didn’t really do anything meaningful.
   I just sort of, drifted through “work”.

   Which is not work. It’s wasted time. See it as it is.
   So now, I take ±5 minutes to visualise what I want to achieve over the next hour, two hours, etc.
   And if it’s design oriented (like for the website), I visualise what I want the end-product to look like.

   Then I work.
   → This process has radically transformed “work” from shots in the dark to being a hyper-precise shot towards a target I can very clearly see.

😤 The Current Obstacle:

The clients I reach out to are slow — because they weren’t motivated by an internal desire to learn more, I am just something that has come across their desk.

And they’ve got a million different things coming across their desk every week.

So I definitely don’t get any sort of preference for their attention (or money).

However, inbound clients who find me themselves are 100% the best experience ever (so far) because they’re ready to pull the trigger, they’re jumping on meetings asap, getting their side sorted out quickly, and before we know it, they’re signed on and paying (holding thumbs for tomorrow).

→ They’re just on the ball and fast-moving.

Hence the reason why I have been wholeheartedly committed to getting this website sorted out as fast as possible.

We already have a few people visiting the site every week, but very, very, veryyy few conversions — because right now it’s just a landing page, with very scarce information about the product + it’s capabilities.

That’s changing asap.

I’ve never built a fully-fledged website for any sort of company before so I’ve taken inspiration from a few other top dog tech company websites, feedback from people in the industry, and general resources online.

→ It’s always, always a work-in-progress with anything we’re doing, so this is just one big step in the direction of working-in-progress.

And once this first version of the website is done (Monday), I’ll submit the YC application and start focusing on the solving the next obstacle.

One big plus I have found from getting so deep into the website is that I have actually been forced to dig so deep into the startup, my vision for the future, the product we’re offering, etc. etc.

Which I have found to bring one million percent more eloquence to my speech when I now am asked about what I’m building.

→ Perfect prep for YC interviews, investor dating, and any sort of branding/marketing/PR I need to engage in.

🕺 The Next Week Ahead:

Very simply:

1. Complete the Website (Monday deadline)

2. Onboard two more agencies on Monday (meetings are scheduled)

3. Get more agencies onboarded aka. revenue generated (the next obstacle)

   There is a street here in Seapoint (about 2km long) where I live and it’s got ±30 estate agency branches all along the street…

   On Tuesday/Wednesday I am going to walk from one end of the street to the other, walking into every single agency branch and requesting to see director XYZ (who I will have researched beforehand).

   Then we’ll not only get feedback, we may even get more agencies onboarded from that action.

4. Submit YC application 🤞

5. Keep building product.

😌 Want to give honest feedback?

All you need to do is reply to this email to tell me your experience versus expectations.

I’ll see what I can do to improve either a) the experience or b) the expectations I am promoting.

Or just thank you for the really helpful feedback :))))

Did I miss anything? Hit that Reply button and let me know what you’d like to see.

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Ciao, see you next week!

Ethan