2016 Final Report
Going into 2017, my financial situation is dire. Both the business and the personal account are below $1k. I’m constantly teetering on the edge of $0, and each sale, each order, each customer matters so much.
The pressure is on.
But make no mistake, this ship is not going down. I have the comfort, luxury, privilege, shame, and guilt of knowing my brother will float me until I get to positive cash flow. That’s why it’s imperative I hit the ground running in 2017.
This final report has 3 parts: how it relates to The Writing Cooperative, the 3 most important thing I learned, and the final financial data for 2016.
The 52 Week Writing Challenge
The Writing Cooperative is a Medium publication I cofounded with some cool people I met on Medium. This year we are hosting a 52 week writing challenge where you commit to writing one post a week. This is my 1st post.
I’m committing to one post a week about my company, Feather Laundry, with a self imposed deadline of Saturday at midnight. I made the same commitment last year but failed to hit a weekly routine. I didn’t prioritize writing. I only wrote when I had extra time. This year I’m committing to making time each week.
The 3 Most Important Things I Learned
- The only metric that matters is cash flow. — Early in the year I thought net sales was going to be my most important metric. But net sales doesn’t tell the whole story. Cash flow does. Cash flow is literally the bottom line. It is the runway and the crash site. It took me several months to learn this but I finally understand! Cash is oxygen.
- Customer acquisition is my #1 job. — Customers come, customers go. You may lose your 3 best customers (or 30 or 300) out of random bad luck. Don’t invest emotionally into customers! Each time I lost a great customer a little part of me died. You can’t sulk. You have to make up for it with a commitment to customer acquisition.
- Growth means making sacrifices. — Early on, I was committed to doing most of the laundry myself. I knew at some point I would outgrow my capacity with one pair of hands and one set of washer and dryer. But I wanted the process to be internal. I wanted processing the laundry to be my core competency. I thought it disgraceful to be the middleman between the source and the customer. But when your self worth and your legacy are on the line, you have to make sacrifices. (As an aside, you may be wondering what a laundry company has to do with legacy. I believe that my life path to have a significant legacy is through wealth. This is not true for all people, but it is true for me.)
The Final Data
Thanks for reading! Here’s hoping for a much better 2017!
This is the 61st entry in a series documenting the journey of a Dallas startup called Feather Laundry. For your reference here is the Table of Contents.
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