BitCash: A Startup's Journey - Week 2
6/9/16
Time Flies
So one week has passed and I'm trying to figure out what I've really accomplished. Yes I completed some administrative tasks, had some technical discussions, did some prep work, made some calls and sent emails. It feels like I did a day's worth in a week. It's embarrassing. These kinds of weeks happen all too often. I'm doing this startup full-time. I have no excuse. I hesitate to write about what I did the last week because there isn't much to write about. Ok so reading and writing Steemit articles may be somewhat excusable. But seriously my work routine is abysmal right now. My schedule is all over the place and I get distracted surfing the web or become lost in my thoughts when I really should be focused on a routine. I've sent about 30 follow-up emails to people, mostly to those who haven't responded to my initial email and to a few who have responded, but still haven't tried our web app. I should be sending out at least 100 emails a day especially because of the way I'm templating them and doing a lot of copy & pasting with minor personalization tweaks. So from now on I'm going to schedule out my routine. I tried a rigid schedule a year and half ago for my other startup, but quickly got off track. I scheduled too many hours during the week and it was too rigid. From now on I'm going to stick to just scheduling out 5 hrs a day/ 5 days a week so I can stick to a routine while keeping other hours more flexible. I have to keep the energy level up and don't want to burn out. I also tried some tasklist tools before, but end up not using them after a while. Evernote is good, but for some reason I often end up back with a pad and pen. I'm from the old school and habits are hard to break. I also just use a lot of Google docs. That's probably what I use the most. I also use Google calendar, but I'm going to rely on it even more now.
For the outreach prep, here's the # of email addresses I imported:
- LinkedIn: 650+ emails (Used to generally accept people I knew, but now I accept all requests.)
- Gmail: 1900+ emails
(Woah. Google must have grabbed all the cc'd emails too from my political days?) - Hotmail: 340+ emails
- Peerhub email: 440+ emails
- BitCash email: 120+ emails
I'll have to scrub all these emails, categorize them and tailor outreach campaigns. It will take some time to do it right.
I also signed up for this Growth Hacking digital book on kickstarter today. I have to put on my growth-hacker hat because that is our main goal, even if it's just for alpha testers. If you have a startup make sure you start growing interest even before you have any product! Anyways hopefully I can recruit someone from this growth hacker group down the road.
Tomorrow I set a routine. 5hrs/5 days . I'll also balance the more rigid routine with planning ways to work smarter so I can consistently fill up the schedule with the most strategic efforts.
Keep Thinking Goals
The good thing is that I have outlined our main goal last week. 1,000 alpha users by July 31st. Last week we were at 100 and today we're at 111. Yes it's a snail's pace. It was good to get on the Beyond Bitcoin mumble last week because a few people probably checked it our after listening in.
The secondary goal I have is to find a mentor/advisor with experience in the payments industry, preferably from Paypal and ideally from the Paypal mafia. I did reach out to one of my friends who will forward a pitch deck and whitepaper to a potential candidate. I realize though that I should really search for 5-10 more candidates to find the right fit and to increase the odds that someone will actually join us.
Anyways. Keep a routine. Be disciplined. Keep persistent. Keep working. Keep the focus. Onward!
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6/2/16