Why Is Achieving My Dream So Stressful?

My business partner Tristan and I worked tirelessly for four months on our company’s first piece of software “Crucendo”. We had argued, laughed, collaborated and after all of it we had something to show. We worked feverishly right up until the moment we made the website live, and opened it up for people to start using. We sat and anxiously watching Google Analytics real time reports, so we could see if people would respond to our calls for action and give Crucendo a go. Slowly people trickled in, first two people using it simultaneously, then four, then six, and then ten. It was one of the most exciting moments in my life. Crucendo was working. I had achieved my dream of building something to help people with their personal and professional development, and people were using it.

I think I enjoyed the moment for five minutes, before I started watching which pages Crucendo’s users were going to. Why were they getting to the welcome page and going no further? What was stopping them? Was it our choice to use email authentication, instead of the standard username and password? Was it that people didn’t understand why they were there, or worse, they didn’t feel like Crucendo was helping them or going to help them to impress themselves? It’s my job to engage people and help them to understand what we’re building. Is this lack of use a reflection on me? Does this mean I haven’t done my job? What more could I have done? I looked at Tristan and told him that I missed a chance to make the sign up process easier for those that had been kind enough to share their email address with us prior to us releasing Crucendo. Would more people be using it right now if I had done that? Maybe. Even though 40% of our traffic was coming from our social media channels, I felt like I hadn’t done enough.

Even if we had seen 100,000 sign ups on day one, I would still be analysing everything and over thinking it all. All I’ve ever wanted with Crucendo was to build something, that would help people improve themselves a little bit every day. We’ve achieved that and yet as I write this, the Google Analytics page shows zero active users on Crucendo right now and it tastes like defeat. I know that it’s barely 36 hours since we released Crucendo, but it doesn’t change the way I feel right now. I should be happy that people have been using it at all, but the reality is that I know how much Crucendo will help people, so I can’t be satisfied with seeing a zero. People don’t always know what’s good for them so they’re skeptical to try something new, and they’re even more skeptical when you say it’s free. It’s unfortunate that as a society we have an expectation that someone is trying to be sneaky, when they deliver something truly helpful and don’t ask you pay anything for it.

I need to work on my over thinking, and maybe sometimes I need to accept things are the way the are, but when I’m one of those responsible for the product and it’s success I’m not accepting second best for anything. So when the numbers don’t impress me, I didn’t do enough to engage people. When the experience isn’t easy enough, I didn’t do enough testing and didn’t try enough options. When I put it like that it probably sounds crazy to some people, but to me it demonstrates my passion for what we’re building and that I’m not willing to accept second best when I know people deserve better. What I can do though, is appreciate the small wins along the way to bigger success. We’ve had some small wins today, which has improved my overall mood and also improved Crucendo. I guess this is how it’s going to be. While I’m excited that Crucendo is available for people to use and enjoy, I’m also going to find myself analysing everything that’s happening to ensure we’re achieving the best possible results and product.