project_log: 031

Yo.

Something hit me this weekend.

I'm in a position where I can take big risks with very little downside. I don't have kids, I don't have a mortgage, I'm about to move somewhere where my living costs are relatively low and my partner works full time which covers majority of our living costs.

There aren't many moments in life that present such an opportunity.

But I've found it challenging to accept risk for the past couple of years. Things haven't been as abundant as they have been now. So I'm still playing it safe out of habit.

Time to change.

The thing that's been messing with my head

One of the characteristics I've adopted into my identity is this idea of doing things independently. Being a "solopreneur."

But then I look up to friends of mine killing it with teams. I look at entrepreneur idols like Jason Fried who did shit his way with a team. I read books and listen to podcasts from Alex Hormozi. All these people I look up to did it with teams of people around them.

Which makes me question the whole solo thing.

Here's where I'm at right now

The business (Over-stimulated) has one source of income right now: development services. I work with design studios as their development and motion design partner. We build marketing websites together. Typically they bring the leads in. I handle everything technical and motion related. We crush. They're happy. Clients are stoked. Cycle repeats.

It's simple and has worked for the past couple years. I've been able to triple my income from working in house at an agency with this strategy. Pretty dope.

But here's the constraint: There is not enough time in the day for me to service the projects that come in. This means my marketing has slowed, and so has my growth. I continue to raise prices which has helped, but having leads slip because of capacity isn't ideal. Especially when those leads are ideal clients.

The classic bottleneck problem.

So where do I take more risk?

Risk #1: Bringing in contractors on a per project basis.

Not gonna lie. Bringing people in scares the shit out of me. Managing people, quality control, making sure profit margins don't get destroyed. It's all new to me.

But as I wrote last week, you have to throw yourself in situations where you have no idea what you're doing. Doing this has always rapidly increased my knowledge in certain areas. So I believe it's necessary to learn and evolve.

Risk #2: Keep building Ballpark while scaling the service business.

Some of you might know that I'm working on this tool that increases leads called Ballpark (check it out at ballpark.ing). The goal is to increase leads for OS, but I built it as a product to help design agencies and other friends increase leads as well.

The risk here? focus and attention. I'm risking that fragmenting my attention from only doing services to also doing software will give me less results than focusing just on services. But if this works out, the risk to my attention will be worth it.

Bringing contractors in AND splitting my attention between 2 things is risky. But I feel comfortable doing this because of the reasons above (no kids, mortgage, partner's working, etc). The potential upside will 100% get me to my goals.

How you can spot where to take risk in your operation

First off, you're probably in a different stage of life to me. That's fine. I still think you can add risk to help you grow. Just adopt this to your tolerance and current situation.

So here's how I did it:

Step 1: Map out the flow of your business Just draw a basic top-to-bottom chart of how you get customers/clients. Nothing fancy:

Step 2: You need a goal. You need to be moving towards something. I'm not going to tell you mine because it doesn't matter for you. The important part is creating something that is ambitious and scares the shit out of you.

Step 3: Ask yourself why you're not at that goal yet. List everything that comes to mind. Be brutal. Here's mine:

Step 4: Invert each reason.

• Will needs to post content that brings in studio partners

• The website needs to be clear on what we do

• We need to ask for referrals and testimonials

• OS needs to increase capacity to handle more work

• Will needs to bring in help and not do everything.

Step 5: Pick the one with the highest reward. Each of these will have some level of risk to reward ratio. I picked the one that has the highest reward (measuring against my goal).

For me that’s increasing capacity and bringing in help. Since that's the constraint. That's where I'm taking risk next to get me closer to my goals.

The thing I'm starting to realise

Business is just about making bets. You are always taking a risk in anything you do or don't do. It might be financial, risk to your attention, focus and energy, risk to your reputation, risk of staying in the same place.

The best entrepreneurs just seem to know what bets to take. Probably because they’ve taken a shit load of them.

To recap:

Identify where you are. Map out the risk you'll take. Take the risk. You'll either win or you'll learn. Repeat.

Will share my learnings when they come in.

Talk soon

Will