The week I had 43 Meetings

100% worth it.

First things first, let me admit, that was just crazy. It didn't make sense to me either, but it had to be done.

Here's what I learned and did during that crazy week about a couple of years ago, while building Goleko.

“Just, Why?”

You must be asking yourself, why would anyone ever put themselves through that?

In a nutshell, I needed tons of feedback on our projects, potential customers, and clients. 

That's what most meetings are only good for after all. They are great for getting and coordinating work, but, not that great for getting said work done.

Wasn't it  Bruce Lee who said ‘Knowing is not enough, we must apply’? 

I've lived by those words for pretty much my entire tech career. The 43 meetings only helped reinforce that idea to me.

Read: Time Management Hacks for the Overwhelmed Tech Student

What did BaunIT accomplish?

So I had a ton of meetings and even though I resolved to (hopefully) never put myself through that ever again, it accomplished even more than I hoped it would. 

Google Ads gave us two leads for our tool videoFeedbackr.com which saved us quite a lot of time. That also came with great guesstimates for the ads that we were about to run.

So, boy, that was wonderful.

Some people didn't show up to their meetings. We had very engaged clients -filled in their names, emails, and even their phone numbers, but in the end, we got no-shows. 

Quickly realized calling them directly was the better option and if possible, I would be moving forward like that from then on.

Google Ads Interface

I learned just how slow and annoying the Google Ads Interface is.

However, if you're a new entrepreneur I would still suggest you check it out because it's very easy to set up once you get a little bit of the hang of it. 

You can:

• Validate your business
• Create content
• Do cold campaigns
• Etc.

It's basically a pay-for-leads system which if you play your cards right and are strategic with your accounts, could be wildly beneficial.  A numbers game if you will.

Read: Optimizing customer support with screen recording

Presenting Goleko

I also had the honor of presenting our Project Management tool Goleko.

It was still in its earliest phase but was functional and already in use which pleasantly surprised our clients.  

It also had some annoying bugs and some areas that needed a bit of a redesign etc (awkward) but we later hired a great developer who helped us style it up. Overall great response, couldn't have been happier. 

Show and Tell

I also presented Goleko on Show and Tell. I bummed a little bit. They mostly saw it as a Trello clone but upon seeing how simpler, faster, and more intuitive it was minds were quickly changed.

This probably happened because I didn't prepare well enough and wanted it to be out there and start getting some feedback coming in on the marketing. I knew it wasn't done and I didn't explicitly say that, my fault. 

I began to see more clearly the ups and downs of having an app that is similar to another from a UX perspective.

• On one end, if your tool is cooler, faster, with better features and better prices, you get a very excited clientele.
• On the other, you will probably be met with ‘it's already been done’ naysayers.

Business Management Tools

I had another meeting with a man I met on Twitter who explained that he needed a Business Management Tool.

It got me thinking. Most Project Management tools tend to be Task-focused -improving Task flow, etc. The only thing most PM tool creators don’t think about is how said tasks will improve the business, and how to interpret that into the tool itself.

Not Just a Project Management Tool.

I was managing way too many projects, and I struggled. I needed to have a bird's eye overview where I could see where everything was going -where the funds were allocated to, what my employees were doing, if what are they doing was the right thing, if they had enough tasks, if they were annoyed by existing tasks… too many questions, not enough answers. 

Read: Practical Tips to Maintain Productivity

I didn't get any solutions with Trello. It was just task boards and that was it, took 20 seconds to load a page, no multiple boards, no subtasks/projects -bleh.

I needed to create a tool capable of handling all this, with everyone in the organization being able to see all the details of a project adding harmony to our company. 

I considered rebranding to market as a Not-Just-a-PM-Tool, simply because it wasn't. 

Hiring a Writer

I hired a highly capable writer that week, Billy.

You might be wondering why hire a writer when you have ChatGPT. Everybody else does it...

Let’s be real, there’s so much crappy content out there because of GPT. People are not investing in quality content anymore. Content creators, copywriters, etc, are being fired left and right because ChatGPT is an easy solution.

But it's just not that good. 

GPT has its strengths, sure, we use it for coding if we have an issue here or there, but creating articles with GPT isn't feasible because 99% of the time AI is obvious.

Read: Becoming a Better Writer

My idea was to combine two forces. My thoughts on Software development, Team Leading, and Business and Billy’s ability to create beautiful and simple content to create a symbiotic relationship because going forward communication was going to be an even higher priority for BaunIT.

Communication

Communication has always been a top priority for any organization that is serious about its growth -you get stuff done, you sell stuff, you understand better, and the possibilities are endless. 

That was the plan and almost two years later, we’re still going strong -Billy is a strong writer. 

Billy has since left, and I have since written blogposts in my lonesome, but it is 100% worth it and I would encourage other founders who don't have the time to do the same!

Lots Learned, Lots To Go

In the weeks after that, I resolved to improve the features we already had instead of adding features (as I always have), refining the design, and acquiring BetaUsers (which we did).

Overall great week, but never again :)

You can find me on YouTube.