Self-Audit: Ups, Downs, and Lessons Learned
I originally thought this should be a personal journal entry, but I want to be held accountable for the lessons and actions I’m about to write about, so I’ve decided to make these events, thoughts, and plans public.
I’m in the defining period of my life, my 20s, and I’m fully aware of how delicate these years are. They set you up for the rest of your life. The people you meet, the things you choose to spend your time and attention on, the core values you develop, etc.: these foundations are laid in your 20s.
I believe it’s imperative to be cognizant of how you’re life is going so you don’t screw it up as a victim of negative compounding interest. How healthy you are physically, emotionally, economically, socially, professionally, and otherwise should be audited before anyone asks you the question:
“How are you?” — Your friends, family, and yourself (and anyone at any party.. ever)
You should know the answer to the latter because you’ve audited yourself. This is my attempt at a self-audit. It’s been a year full of ups and downs. I believe what gets measured gets managed, so here I deconstruct the major ups and downs that happened in 2016 and set the direction for 2017.
Ups & Downs in Major Areas of my Life in 2016:
Professional life: tapTrax
In 2016 I spent most of my time working on tapTrax with two teammates. It was a music discovery app that was like Pandora on steroids. It was my responsibility to set the direction of the product, and the team, and raise investor interest in the company.
Ups 👍 :
- We got to ~150,000 downloads.
- We recruited two incredibly smart engineers to join our journey.
- I got to meet Super Bowl Champ, Sidney Rice, who was a prospective investor for tapTrax.
- (I thought) we had a deal with Redbull to be a curation partner.
- (I thought) Akon was going to be our first seed round investor. A perfect fit!
- tapTrax peaked at #1 for top Music Discovery Apps on the App Store (and leveled out at #4).
Downs 👎 :
- I got strung along by investors who were going to invest in [XYZ] happened first.
- tapTrax made it to the final round of the Techstars & Virgin Media Accelerator in London but got rejected.
- tapTrax was rejected from Y Combinator for the 3rd time.
- The deal with Akon fell through; given that he’s a celebrity, I’m not sure what’s appropriate to disclose publicly, so I’ll have to keep this ambiguous.
- The deal with Redbull fell through; our contact there had left the company to work with another company.
- Even after the traction, we were able to get with our MVP, tapTrax wasn’t a good fit for VCs (for what I learned to be a good reason). The most ‘successful’ music businesses like Spotify, Soundcloud, and even Apple aren’t even turning a profit.
- I had to admit that I fell in love with tapTrax and what it could be rather than realizing it. The idea for tapTrax came so organically, and my intention to help people discover music faster and bring joy into their lives felt right. But, I had to come to terms with the likelihood that I wasn’t the person to take tapTrax to the next level. It takes relationships and deals with music rights holders to use music on a large scale (which I didn’t have) and millions in the capital (which I also didn’t have, and being that investors are bearish on the music sector: no one was writing checks to music companies, including ours). I’ve shifted my focus to other projects.
Personal life
Ups 👍 :
- A great year of travel! Hawaii, Las Vegas, New York, Boston, Toronto, Washington DC, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, Montreal, Quebec City, and Vancouver ✈️
- Saw John Wall drop 52 points courtside in DC!
- Went to my first TEDx event, in Toronto.
- Saw Steve Aoki in Vegas!
- Caught the end of an F1 race in Montreal.
- I went Skydiving for the first time!
- Went on a run with Michael Phelps 🇺🇸
- I went to my first Coachella:
- Listened to tons of songs on repeat. Here are my top songs of 2016.
- I attended the Forbes Under 30 Summit in Boston, it was amazing as usual!
- I celebrated one year with my girlfriend 💑
- I upped my brand and was featured in HuffPo & Forbes.
- I broke the habit of over-checking email.
Downs 👎 :
- I gained 8 pounds from January 2015 (maybe relationship weight, maybe startup stress weight).
- The amount of rejection and let-downs involving tapTrax took a toll on me psychologically and emotionally. In other businesses with revenue (or funding), the stress could be mitigated by resolving problems later, but we didn’t have that luxury.
What I learned about life
- People will waste your time. So, by any means necessary, you cannot let them. Put a time limit on everything.
- Patience is key, but if you’re waiting on one person/event/thing to happen, you’re in a bad spot. Have things going in the background, and/or have better alternatives already on the table for you.
- ^Related: Don’t walk into a deal unless you have leverage, but use leverage as a plan B. Plan A is to play nice.
- Be deliberate. Outbound > Inbound. Everything you want already exists and has been obtained by people worse off than you, so go get it. (Not the in the corny motivational way, but literally: go get it; it’s probably accessible).
- Motivational ‘rah-rah’ is mostly BS. Doing something is a simple concept: you want to do something enough, or you don’t.
- Books have the highest ROI of anything you’ll invest time & money into.
- Quitting is perfectly acceptable. If you can’t be the best in the world if you’ve run out of ideas for solutions, and it crushes your soul to carry on, quit. The world offers better alternatives for you.
- Good thoughts divide: if you say or do something everyone agrees with, who cares, anyone could do that.
- Honesty has a lot to do with living effortlessly. The truth is low maintenance. It’s less effort (fewer lies to keep track of).
- Compounding interest is very powerful; stopping the smallest bad habits pays you dividends.
- Busy is not productive. Busy is busy. Be still; aim at the right to-dos, not every to-do.
- Things ‘may not work out;’ adjust your expectations accordingly.
What I learned about myself
- I struggle with appreciation.
- I let ideas flow freely, and I spend a lot of time ‘shaving down’ my notes and strategizing what to do and how to do it.
- I zone out a lot, I’m not sure why people correlate this to ADD/ADHD. I call it thinking.
- I procrastinate if there is no ‘real’ deadline present, I believe procrastination can be a good thing. Plus, my best work happens when I want to work, so I work when I feel like working.
- I don’t like ‘burning’ money. A business that needs a critical mass or is one of those ‘we’ll get users and figure out the business model later’ isn’t for me.
- I don’t spend my time or attention with people for theater. If I’m spending time with someone, I want to.
- I think about age & regret it a lot. I live to minimize regret.
- I clean too much, offline (apartment) and online (notifications, emails, texts, files, etc.).
- I’m uncomfortable with self-imposed public embarrassment. When I used to post my goals on Facebook, I was more productive. Why? I can’t stand the ridicule or the possibility of someone asking, “what happened to what you said you’d do?” I believe there’s a gap between what I say and what I do, and leveraging the fear of the former keeps me accountable.
2017 Outlook: Core Values 💭 & Goals ✔️
- 💭 Theme: cognizant & tranquil. I’m focusing on being present (not letting days fly by) and eliminating anything that causes me pain.
- 💭 Schedule tasks & habits. If it’s not on my schedule, I don’t do it.
- 💭 Schedule habits: workout, weekly facebook update (Saturdays), learning for 2 uninterrupted hours, calling my friends and family (to avoid being caught up in my own life), and a Bi-weekly personal hackathon (from Friday-Sunday).
- 💭 up the energy; I’ve been too chill. Jumpstart every day: meditate, music, pray, and take a cold shower.
- 💭 My system for getting things done: 1) Goals 2) Create simple process 3) Schedule time investment 4) Create stakes 5) Measure
- ✔️$1M ARR (333 @$249/mo customers) for new co. (more details later).
- ✔️Explore Tokyo and incubate ideas.
- ✔️Get to 12% body fat; weight doesn’t matter.
I truly believe self-auditing is the foundation for taking control of and improving my well-being. 2017, let’s go.
