Finding your feet, again and again (discipline and belief)

Happy New Year!

It’s been a while! I’ve been putting all of my energy solidly into MoodMap, and have finally kicked my self up the bum to write a post here.

I hope you’ve all made some great new year resolutions, and striving to keep at them, whatever they may be. Mine is to keep believing and striving (I now like the word striving).

Before I get into what I’ve been doing, to make sure all new readers are up to date. I’m focusing solely on MoodMap – an interactive and engaging app to help people to flourish in their mental well-being, and providing practises and support to those suffering from mild-moderate anxiety/depression.

I’ve put to rest BlueSkies collaboration (blueskiesc.co.uk) to focus on MoodMap – but to leave on a high note I was invited to lead a 2-hour workshop at the Cambridge Conservation Forum Symposium – using the BlueSkiesc structure for approx. 100 conservation leaders and specialists. It was an AMAZING step up, and feel happy to put it to rest for some time with quite a big accomplishment!

So I took just two days off for holidays over the winter period – Xmas day and NY day – so yes I’m pretty tired and stressed, and want to chuck MoodMap in the bin every other day. I’ve hired a developer to make me a prototype (me doing the design for now to save money). It took a LOT of negotiating over the contract for development, which was a week of a bloody load of stress, but we finally agreed on a price which we’re all happy with and he’s full steam ahead.

Because I’ve realised it will take a LOT of money to get the full app made, I’ve had to just go for a prototype with just one of the features for now, and then use this to go for crowdfunding to raise the rest. So once the crowdfunding profile is up I’ll let all you generous people know 😀

This last month, with a great deal of challenges in costs, contracts, a new co-founder, finding more and more similar products every day, it takes a certain skill, which I’m hoping I’m getting better at — to stand back and admit I’m not on the right path, or I’m going the wrong way, and tweak the direction I’m going in.

This might not sound hard but when it’s you making the decisions, taking the initiative, and ultimately realising you’ve already dedicated 3 months of 50 hour weeks, it can come in blows to realise when you’ve been wasting your time on one area of things, or have wasted a week doing something wrong, etc.

Sometimes it comes to the point where you’re asking yourself what has been the point in doing this? Not a single penny has come in, and things still aren’t progressing fluently, and you want to give up and go back to working under someone else – who can ultimately take responsibility for giving you money, providing you the comfort of telling you what you’re worth, and what needs to be done. And I want to say people working in companies, etc – that’s completely legit and awesome if you enjoy it (don’t want this to turn into some uppity post where I start telling you all that my farts smell better than employed people) – this is to keep my fellow enterprisers motivated – It takes a great deal of discipline, humility, and belief to stumble back onto your feet and realign your sights to the horizon. I think every time one does this they get better at it.

So- what is this post about again? Ah yeh – so recap on MoodMap – It’s been a tough month with a lot of challenges, unsurity, and heads in hand – really not sure this is going to work, and incredibly frustrated that I’m not generating any kind of income (Except music which brings in enough!).

Even though there’s a lot of doubt in the air my mentors (at the Cambridge Accelerator Program), friends, and my girlfriend constantly remind me that even though there’s nothing to show yet I’m learning an incredible amount about team-building, project management, vision, budgeting, contracts, constructive feedback, and resilience.

I’ve moved back from the Cambridge Accelerator Program office back to my old office with some old co-workers (they keep a desk for me :)), so that I can be away from all the noise and fast pace of the ‘entrepreneurial’ world so that I can sit down with a giant to do list and my sights to my better senses of where the horizon may be, and get it done.

Happy stumbling!

Momentumising once more

Hey guys,

 

Sorry it’s been a while. I just got back from my final holiday in Shcotland – lots of walking, playing music, and letting my work brain rest for a while.

This post will be again tracking and describing the progression of my projects, and probably a little bit of whining on the fact that I am yet to be making enough to buy an aqua jet pack.

I will start on the most recent of my attempts for success. It’s a bit random but stay with me okay?
Have you ever heard of nap pods? They’re basically relaxation chair/pods that are being installed in some workplaces to let employees take naps, or people waiting in airports, etc. I recently watched a film called the internship, based on two guys trying to get internships on the google campus. These nap pods were featured on this film .. and I thought to myself ‘these are going to soon be in pretty high demand’ .. so I dropped an email to the company who retails them, telling them I’d be interested in selling these in the UK for commission. Following a very brief talk with the Managing Director he sent along a commission agreement that details if I sell one of their products I’ll get commission on this. They sell for $8000 a piece, so you can imagine the share I get is pretty good.

Unfortunately they didn’t send any extra info – no promotional material, and are yet to answer my questions on if there’s any of their products already in the UK I can use for potential customers to ‘try before they buy’. I’ve been waiting two weeks so far and no reply. So although it does seem like a great opportunity I’ll have to just wait to see if they can provide anything to help me sell these.

Aside from this the other projects are coming along very slowly indeed. However, with BlueSkies I now have an intern – an Administration and Strategy Assistant – who’s based in London and is really helpful in managing the social media, outreach to conservation organisations, and is very willing to become Branch Manager if I ever expand to London – which I will be doing in the new year.

The game is going extremely slow. Now that I have a team of four – programmer, designer, therapist – it’s really hard getting everyone to meet up, and because there is no momentum trying to get the initial work done is really hard because we’re yet to come to a consensus on what actually should be done first! I guess this is something I need to decide as the leader  –  consolidate the vision for the first ‘draft’ and delegate for this to happen .. just I’m not used to this so I guess it’ll take time.

The music is going quite well. My acoustic music I’m getting a gig at least once a fortnight. My biggest aim at the moment, along with developing my songs and skills, is to try something I’ve never had the confidence to do before – create a following. So if you have the time please do ‘like’ my music page – https://www.facebook.com/jhmusica?ref=hl – and encourage others to do the same.

The book is also a toughy (reminder – I’m writing a book called ‘Cambridge Success Stories’…I’m running out of success stories that I know of in Cambridge so I’m trying to do some research on businesses that are not only successful but also have an interesting or inspiring story. I’m thinking what I’ll have to start doing is going to networking sessions for entrepreneurs/managers to find more stories.

Anyway that’s about it to bring you all up to speed. This is my second day back to work and it’s a little hard getting the momentum back but it’s really not so bad. It really does feel like I’m having to give a big old boulder a push after allowing its momentum to stop, and I’ve just got to keep pushing for a few days before the work mindset flows again.

[This is exactly what I look like when I push boulders]

As is kind of obvious I’m yet to be making more money than can just about pay rent and food (holiday came out of my dwindling savings!). It’s frustrating – I imagined by the time I was 25 I’d already be quite set and doing well for myself. When you’ve got friends doing well around you it can be tough sometimes to wonder why I’ve taken this path. But I know there is a reason for it, and I’m getting to develop and progress and explore the way I want to. I guess it’s just a little tough this way sometimes, and a bit of a gamble. Who knows guys, maybe one day it’ll pay off!

Happy pushing