09 Building in Public: We. Are. Live.

Good morning (afternoon)!  What a day. Sun is shining, it’s 30 degrees.

Oh, and HeyCPA is LIVE. Check us out: HeyCPA

We’re stoked. It’s still a bit rough around the edges, and there’s lots of work to be done, but damn it feels good to get it out there.

Once we were able to get out of our own way and launch the thing, it felt like the momentum shifted. We're thinking less and doing more. And that’s exactly what we wanted.

And now the fun part really starts… How do we grow this thing? What are our goals?

A couple thoughts.

In these initial stages our game plan is to go deep instead of wide. Rather than spreading ourselves thin across every platform, we’re going to double down on LinkedIn where we already have a (small) audience. We’ll also use this as an opportunity to hone in on our engagement analytics and see what kind of content and outreach is gaining traction and where we’re falling short.

We’re going to reach out to a lot of employers and basically just ask if we can repost their jobs on the board (More on this in a separate post. We’ve been pleasantly surprised with how well this has been working so far).

These will be free posts but that’s okay for the first month(ish). It’s also totally unscalable, but the only way to reach scale is through unscalable activities.

Also, we’ll utilize our networks. Have friends and family, ex-colleagues, and others share our content. We’re not doing any paid ads yet, so we need to really push our organic content.

In terms of goals…we’re trying to keep it simple. At this point there’s not a lot of value in looking too far out. But it’s hard not to. The immediate goal is to get our first paying customer. That’s it. Ideally before July 1. We’d consider that a massive success.

And because we can’t help ourselves, we’re setting longer term goals too. And they’re big → $83.3k/monthly in recurring revenue at a 90% margin. It’s doable. But it will take a lot of work (and patience). At some point I’ll write a post on the thinking behind this. Why this number, what we need to do to get there, and why I think having a moonshot goal is a must.

While we’re thrilled to have the board launched, there are a few things (okay, a lot things) we’d do differently next time. Here are the four big ones that stood out to us.

Easier said than done, but if you’re starting a business, avoid these (costly) mistakes.

1. Over complicating. I didn’t heed my own advice. We started off with a complex software that we had no idea how to use. Result? $1k down the drain and weeks of frustration.
   Lesson: Stick to what you know and double down on your strengths (our strengths are not coding and web development). Noted.
   
2. Perfecting the first iteration. It won’t be perfect. Hell, it will never be perfect. We spent way too long trying to fine-tune details that didn’t matter. All of this was just nerves. A little scared to launch. A little unsure of reactions. And frankly, fear of failure. What if it isn’t a massive success?? Spoiler alert: it might not be…
   Lesson: Just launch it. Listen to feedback, then reiterate
   
3. Trying to answer ALL the questions. Businesses evolve. Period. We wanted to have all the answers before we even got off the ground. In reality, we didn’t even know if we were asking the right questions.   Coinbase started as a software to send and receive Bitcoin. Now they’re the largest Crypto exchange in the world. Facebook started as a social network for one university. Now they basically run our lives. I’m NOT comparing HeyCPA to that scale. We don’t even want it to get there. It’s a bootstrapped company with the main goal of profitability. My point is that everyone has to start somewhere, and it’s interesting to look back at how these companies started.
   Lesson: Embrace the learning process. Don’t assume you need all the answers. Understand one pain point you’re solving and start there.
   
4. Doing useless work. We spent too much time planning, analyzing, and researching. This was just a time-consuming form of procrastination. Some of it helped. A lot of it didn’t move the needle.
   Lesson: Do real shit. Stuff that moves the needle forward. It’s amazing how much less work there is when you focus on this… Set bit sized goals and stay focussed. Don’t fall into the trap of busy work.
   

Mistakes aside, we’re so excited to see where it goes.

The challenge of growing, scaling, and earning our first dollar is fun to think about it. Starting was the hardest part (we hope) and we got that outta the way.

Now onto the fun part!!

P.S. Check it out and please share your feedback. Give it to us straight. We wanna hear it.

Consider:

→ Is it intuitive? → Anything painful about the site navigation? → Anything you’d add (or more importantly, delete)?

P.P.S Give us a follow on LinkedIn: HeyCPA