Weekly review for April 3, 2022

With the help of some friends and a group on Twitter I have goals for the quarter.

I joined Cohort 1 of GrowthLab on Twitter and am doubling down on the idea of growth experiments for Helppie. To start, there's the need to speak with customers.

Helppie's positioning is almost identical to similar tools. There's nothing to set it apart and the copy is bland. Full of typos.

What am I doing about that?

Retchel, a VA who helps me out with jobs like this, is back on board and building a list of people to reach out to. As she does that, I'm drafting my outreach messages based on Customer Camp's Clarity Call Cheatsheets.

Some things didn't go well

Last week was busier than expected and full of tasks that I didn't see coming. My work at Atlassian still feels like a series of ebbs and flows. Sometimes it's predictable. Other times it catches me off guard and forces me to leave priorities at the door. That fluctuation will steady out over the next several months as product changes and integrations roll out. For now I need to be ready to pivot my attention and prioritize the work.

But what didn't go well?

Atlassian work is first priority. Helppie and other goals get pushed down the list. I didn't spend as much time as I'd like on Helppie and I realize that I have to get used to that.

There's a low-level anxiety that comes from working on side projects. It's the guilt of spending too much time with your daughter, knowing that your son is there waiting to kick the ball around. It's a nagging feeling that you know you should do something about. But sometimes you can't.

What I learned

I learned to recognize that feeling, the anxiety, of not giving enough time and attention to something important to me. I learned that I'm excited to work on Helppie and that this quarter will be great when I hit my goal of selling it.

I also learned that the first step to selling a product is to tell people about it. No shit! you might be saying at me. But I've been working so much on work and family that Helppie became something to keep me busy in the between hours.

I got obsessed with making sure the buttons all worked and the code was secure...

... and let myself hide behind that work so I didn't have to think about talking to customers and getting feedback. If you're building a plan, wondering whether or not it will fly, there's one way to find out: push it out the window.

Helppie is being pushed out the window to see if it will fly.

The first time I pushed Helppie out the window, I heard positive feedback. This could be a useful tool. An actual potential customer told me that.

Last thing: I need to use my own product so I know what it's like. Another duh! moment, yeah. But it's progress.

One word

I work with one word in mind each week. I print this word in bold lettering. It's taped to the wall above my monitor.

This week it's Ready. I'm ready to get serious about Helppie. I'm ready to do the work.