One Step Closer to Being Right

Do you want to know what hurts like a bitch?

Trying to find your market fit.

And childbirth.

Earlier this month, we took our cards to a Christmas Expo. We spent thousands of dollars on our booth and product. We painstakingly designed our space and spent hours upon hours preparing and setting it up. Ben had many sleepless nights trying to get the app working well. He threw out months of work and added features that we thought people wanted. I packaged cards the night before until my arms ached and my fingers were numb. 

We told ourselves that it would be okay. It would all be worth it in the end. People like what we're doing. It's cool!

Guess how many new customers we acquired over those three days? Just throw out a number. 

Six. It was Six.

We went home feeling like we sold our house for a product that literally nobody wants. We felt like failures -- Ben obviously felt it even harder than I did. 

This experience was painful, but things are going to be okay. 

We started out too broad with our messaging, product, and our target customer. We aren't entirely wrong, and everybody that told us that this was a good idea wasn't just bullshitting us. Our customer is more specific than we'd thought, and through this stupid painful experience, we're learning who he/she is. We're also determining what our next products need to look like. 

I get really hung up on wasted time and money. I can't stand it when I spend hours on something that then just gets thrown out. It makes my eye twitch when I spend too much money on something that will never be used. I foolishly expect myself to get it right the first time, every time.

But when it comes to new tech and new businesses, no one has all the answers right away. That's why companies seek investment. You're supposed to use the cash to find your solid market fit. To achieve that fit, you have to test products and fine tune them. That costs money.

One thing is finally starting to click in my head -- if you want to make real money, you have to spend it first. 

So the Christmas Expo sucked, like really bad. People told Ben to his face that the cards he built on his own were "stupid" and "unimpressive." (Seriously, who does that? Are there really that many people in such desperate need of basic human decency lessons? You don't have to love everything that everyone is doing, but you don't have to be rude.)

The good news is, this is not the end of the world or the company. It's okay to get it wrong the first, the second, and even the third time. Every time you're wrong, you get one step closer to being right. Besides, I think eventually, genuinely successful people learn to wear their failures and rejections as badges of honor. 

So here's to failing. Here's to getting back up and trying again. Here's to getting one step closer to being right. 🍻

"Lunch Party"

                                     

I should have thrown my husband a "Launch Party" because, YOU GUYS, the app is live!!!

Ben is the real MVP (by that I mean "Most Valuable Player" not "Minimum Viable Product") because he just powered through our most recent problems like they were nothing. He was made for this life.

I, on the other hand, feel like a balloon tied to a rock right now. I'm elated and excited, but also anxious and overwhelmed. Haha, like, it's not even my company. I'm ridiculous. I did warn you that I'm too emotional and too overwhelm-able.

I need to pause to say that I feel really scatter-brained today. I can already tell that this will not be my strongest piece of writing. But, stick with me, because this part of the entrepreneurial process is important. 

Memento by ardsk went live in the App Store and on Google Play the day before Halloween. We didn't do anything about it because we, like everyone else, were busy with holiday stuff. We didn't expect any orders or to become an overnight viral sensation. That doesn't actually happen in real life when you've put zero dollars into marketing. 

We weren't really surprised that our only app downloads, accounts created, and orders placed were from family members or close friends. (Thanks, guys! 😘 ) Logically we weren't surprised, but I would be lying if I didn't admit to being just a little disappointed and paranoid. I won't speak for Ben. He has this optimistic superpower that I've always been mildly jealous of. 

The next two weeks both dragged and flew by. I made Facebook and Instagram business pages. Ben made little changes to the app. We paced holes into the kitchen floor. (If our landlord is reading this, just kidding! There are no holes in the kitchen floor.) I helped Ben fill out applications for VC money. I listened to Ben monologue about his vision for the company while preparing for meetings with VC's. Also we probably neglected our children a little bit. 

Maybe we've been floundering? It's like, the app building phase was college. There was a clear path. Ben just put his head down and worked until it was finished (of course, if you're familiar with app development, you know that there's no such thing as a "finished app").  The app release was like graduation. For a split second, you think "Hell yeah! I did it! I'm gonna take on the world!" Then reality hits and you realize you have to find a job and no one really cares about all of your perceived accomplishments. 

This is where we are right now, post-graduation. There is no roadmap ahead of us. There are advice and opinions both helpful and unhelpful, but there is no one sure way to go. That's up to us to figure out now.

We've started making new plans, knowing that for now, we are on our own. We're making plans as if no VC is ever going to give us money. We're making plans knowing that we have six more months of runway. 

I'm excited about our plans. Hopefully, soon, they'll  be fleshed out and solid enough to share. And who knows? Maybe we'll have some good news to share at that point too. 

Give Up

When you're a kid, everyone tells you "You can do anything! Follow your dreams!" But that's all feel-good fluff. No one ever tells you that you'll fail a hundred times before you accomplish that thing you wanted to do. No one tells you how scary it will be, how you'll have to pour everything you are into your dreams, and then still dig a little deeper because everything you think you are won't be enough. 

The past six months of our journey have been riddled with problems:
Should we pivot to a different business model? How will we print these cards? How will we cover our costs and make a profit, but still get people to buy? The app is broken again. How will we integrate payment systems that comply with the thousands of rules and laws out there? The app is broken again. How can we possibly follow the new confusing tax laws that were just passed? Is this idea even going to work? Will people even want this after it's all built and out in the world? The app is broken again. What else do we need to do to build our company? What other products should we start building? Should we go after fundraising right now or wait until the first product is released? Should we give equity to people that want to join our team, even if they won't have a defined role yet? Should we patent more things? Should we trademark? The app is broken again. Are we ready for beta testing? Are we ready to release? Why are people confused by the process? How can we change the app UI? How can we make things work better? Look at all of our competition! Are we ready???? The App Store rejects our first submission. Stripe doesn't understand the way our payment system is integrated and could shut us down. 

And this is where we are today. 

I actually cried this morning, quietly to myself. Today, this isn't fun and exciting. Today it all just sucks. 

But Ben took a deep breath and said, "I won't take 'No' for an answer." And he won't, because he knows how to keep going. He knows how to squash down all of the doubts and insecurities because at the end of the day we've come too far to give up. The world seems to be screaming at us to give up. It will keep screaming at us to give up. 

Our favorite movies right now are "Walt Before Mickey", "Joy", "The Greatest Showman", and "Meet the Robinsons".  The world screamed at these real and fictional characters to give up. But they didn't. They easily could have, and no one would have blamed them. 

I think nobody would blame us for giving up either. I think it's almost expected of us. The world isn't actually built to help people realize their potential. It's built to keep the rich rich and the poor poor. It's built to keep everyone in line, to keep everyone selling themselves short. 

So I guess that's why we can't give up. That's why we have to keep moving forward, even on days like today when everything sucks. 

The White Picket Fence Lie

Get good grades + Go to a good college + Get a good job + Marry your soulmate + Buy a perfect house in a perfect neighborhood + Have a couple of perfect children = Ultimate Happiness

Or does it?

That's what we did with our lives (although not in that exact order). We did what was drilled into our heads by teachers, family members, friends, and society. We'd never stopped to ask ourselves though if it was what we really wanted. We didn't know if it was OUR ultimate happiness. In fact, I think deep down we knew it wasn't.

So it was time to go all in on this company idea. It was time to take an enormous risk and leap of faith.

We made the decision to sell our home and began pouring every spare minute into cleaning up our house and yard. A couple of days before we listed our home, Ben and I stood in our enormous, newly fenced backyard. The kids were in bed, finally, and everything was quiet.

"We didn't even get to enjoy the fence." I tried to smile but my shaky voice gave me away. "This feels so crazy." I wiped a tear from my cheek.

My husband put his arm around me and said, "I promise you that the next house we buy will be even more amazing than you can imagine. We're going to be so rich, and we're going to fix all the shitty things happening in the world right now."

We listed our house and for four days, we couldn't breathe. I did nothing but snap at the kids for every tiny mess they made. I fed them fast food too many times. I took them to the park when it was too cold, and to the store when we didn't need to buy anything.

It was only four days, guys. If it had been one day longer I would have lost it and ended up in a padded white cell. An offer for our asking price came in and we accepted.

Two weeks later, Ben quit his six-figure salary job. Two weeks after that we moved out of our beautiful house and into a rental. 

The day we turned over the keys to our newly sold home, I wrote this: 

"Our house is so empty now that our voices echo as we say goodbye. It's surreal to see it this way, to be leaving. So much life was lived here.

There were tears, yelling, and bitter struggles. There was laughter, understanding, and so much love. Some of my most cherished memories happened right here within these walls. This is where our youngest came home, took his first steps and said his first words. This is where our oldest's bright personality exploded and he made his first real friends. This is where I wrote my first books. This is where all of Ben's plans and ideas finally turned into something real.

It's so hard to say goodbye. But in the end, it's just a house. It's just a tiny dot on a huge map, and all the things that really matter are coming with us wherever we go.

Now it's time to move on to new exciting adventures and live more of life's big moments."

We rented a cute little office space in a building that was built in the 1800's. We ordered Ben a "World's Best Boss" mug from our favorite TV show. And then Ben put his head down and went to work creating our vision.

The true beginning of our entrepreneurship adventure was so bitter-sweet. It was rush of adrenaline, excitement, sadness, and fear all rolled together. We couldn't wait to break free from the mold and build a product that would make people smile. 

Another Round of Layoffs

Job security is such an illusion, isn't it? You could work for a huge stable company that suddenly decides to move your job overseas. You could work for a smaller company that's doing really well, and gets acquired! Yay! Well... until they decide to take the company a different direction and your job is no longer relevant. Or maybe you work for a volatile startup and your salary can no longer be afforded. 

Layoffs, layoffs, layoffs.

We've seen all of those exact situations happen to people close to us in the last year. Some of us are okay to keep rolling the dice and putting our fate into another's hands. Some of us don't think we have a choice. Honestly, if I were the breadwinner of our family, I would be plugging along with my head down, just hoping that the layoffs didn't happen to me. 

That's not Ben. If we're billionaires vacationing on our own private island, he wants it to be because of his own hard work. If we're out of jobs, out of money, and eating Top Ramen, he wants it to be on his terms, not some bureaucrat trying to "clean up the budget." He wants to be the master of his own fate. He wants it so badly that he's willing to live on 4 hours of sleep. He's willing to fail and keep trying until he gets it right. He's willing to be hated, ignored, and not taken seriously. He's willing to have hard conversations with people he'd rather not talk to. He's not just willing to do these things. He's excited to do them. 

"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.” 
— Anonymous

Enough said. 

And I'm the lucky one that gets to live it with him. (You're wondering if that statement is dripping with sarcasm, right? Me too). 

Last time I left off with a long car ride, and a big idea. In case you already forgot, or didn't read that post, our business is AR video cards. 

Where did we go from there? 

It turned into a side-project. You know what I'm talking about. You love it, you're excited about it, you're going to Make. It. Happen. And then you realize that you work full-time, commute 2-3 hours a day, and have an angry wife that is going to scratch your eyes out if she has to put the kids to bed by herself one more time. Ha. That's how it goes for everybody, right?

So, it slowly faded out of existence in our lives. Ben tried other little side projects and watched many of his co-workers get laid off. He was getting frustrated and restless. 

That's when a new sort of conversation started. He usually began his sentences with "So I had another idea!" Now they all started with, "So I did the math..." that was followed by, "If we save $1,000 a month, I could quit my job in 6 months, and we'd have 6-8 months of runway." Sometimes it would be, "If I dropped to part-time, we could still afford our house," or "If we sold (fill in the blank) we could have (fill in the blank) months of runway."

You're probably thinking, "Hey Karen, why don't you go get a job?" That's fair. I completed an AS degree at a community college. I was a pitifully paid preschool teacher for 5 years after that. I have no skills people. I mean, unless you want a peanut butter sandwich and a cup of milk stat. I also know some pretty great songs about the alphabet, but last time I checked, that won't pay the bills. (On a more serious note, I do write, but that also doesn't pay the bills). 

We talked about home equity loans. We refinanced our house to lower our payment. We tried to tighten our budget. Ben avoided saying it, but we had nearly $80,000 worth of equity sitting in our beautiful new house. He also tried to hide the fact that his desk job was sucking the life out of him, literally. 

I love my husband. I believe so much in his abilities. He has some damn good ideas, and he deserves to pursue his dreams. If anyone deserves it, he does. 

And so, we decided together that if we were going to do this, we needed to go all in. You know the scene in "The Dark Knight Rises" where Batman is stuck at the bottom of the cave-pit thing? And there's a rope, and you can tie it to yourself while you try to climb out so you don't fall? But Batman couldn't get out until he tried it without the rope.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, my husband is Batman.

Also, I'm trying to say that you can't reach for the stars with a rope tied to your waist. The rope was the job, the house, the white picket fence lie. 

So we made a thousand pros and cons lists, and we went all in. 

The Big Idea

My husband, Ben, literally cannot stop the flow of ideas that pour into his head. One thing I can count on him saying at least every other day is, "So I had another idea! What do you think of this?" Some of them elicit nothing more than a blank stare from me. Then there are others that get me all excited and convince me to sell our house.

This idea, the big one, started forming almost a year ago. We were halfway through a ten-hour long drive home from Disneyland. (Ben is obsessed with Disneyland, but that's a topic for another day). He was bouncing his usual stream of ideas off of me, while the kids cried for more snacks in the backseat.

Suddenly his eyes lit up and he went quiet for a minute. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "AR video cards!"

"Hmm?"

Guys, do you even know what AR is? Do you know what VR is? I'm the only one of my friends that follows HTC Vive on Facebook. I'm the only one that's climbed Mt. Everest and sat on the bottom of the ocean floor, watching jellyfish float past. I'm the only one that can give you a "pros and cons list" comparing Occulus and Vive. Should we talk about field of view and tracking accuracy? No?

Okay, for those who aren't familiar with these technologies, Augmented Reality superimposes computer-generated images into your real-world view of something. (Think Snapchat filters or Pokemon Go, only so much cooler).  Virtual Reality is completely computer-generated and immersive.

These technologies are amazing and they're exploding. If you haven't already, you're going to start seeing them everywhere. And no, they are not just for hardcore gamers. I cannot emphasize that enough. They have the potential to bring some really incredible and positive changes to so many aspects of society.

Ben has been a software engineer in the VR industry for a couple of years now. He is passionate about the good ways it can change the world, and I guess I am too now.

Anyway, back to the idea. AR video cards.

We're talking physical paper cards that you send in the mail, hold your phone over them, and watch them come to life. Users will be able to upload video and customize awesome 3D content. These cards can be used for regular greeting card purposes, announcements, invitations, or just to share a big moment with someone you love.

Ben and I have both gotten a lot of "whys?" and "hows?" when we've attempted to share this idea with others. We have the answers to most of those questions, and I will gladly get into them in another post.

Right now though, I'm a little concerned that Thing 1 and Thing 2 have been napping too long and will, therefore, refuse to go to sleep tonight! We can't have that. We just can't.

Until next time! ✌

Intros: The Wife, The Dreamer, The Kids

I'm Karen. I'm a little too emotional, a little too sarcastic, and a little too quiet. I get stressed out and overwhelmed probably too easily. But damn-it, I'm one of the most loyal and supportive people you will ever meet, and if I give you my love you will have it forever.

I married a trail-blazing, adventure-seeking dreamer when we were just babies. Seriously, we were twenty and twenty-three. Babies. Let's call him Ben (because that's his name). Sometimes this guy has me in awe with all of his brilliance and bravery. I would literally kiss the hem of his hypothetical robes and follow him to the ends of the earth. Other times the constant stream of ideas and his inability to be content are... annoying. Still other times, he's an asshole and I want to punch him in the face.

Marriage, right?

We have two little boys, a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Let's call them Thing 1 and Thing 2 (because they are wild and crazy and because pedophiles don't get to know their names). I stay home and clean up their messes. No, I cook their food and open their fruit-snack wrappers. Um, maybe I keep them from accidentally killing each other? I drive them places. I'm the chauffeur. Okay but really I just wipe their bums and wash their clothes all day. I'm the one that yells, "STOP TOUCHING YOUR BROTHER!!!" 500,000,000 times a minute.

I am blessed with the ever-rewarding task of raising up two precious tiny humans into kind, thoughtful, functioning adults. Is that a better description of what I do?

Two months ago, my husband —with my full consent— cannon-balled us right into the middle of a crazy adventure.

He quit his 6 figure salary job. We sold our beautiful brand new house on a half-acre lot and moved into a rental.

Why? Why would we do that?

He/we/mostly he is starting a company. I am here to tell that story, from my perspective. Let me just preface it all by saying, entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. It's not for the doubtful, the insecure, or the comfortable. It will test you and break you, and then test you again. It's hard and it's ugly, and it's a long, long road. But at the end of this dark, hard, scary road is a beacon of hope and excitement that forces you to keep going. Maybe, just maybe we'll make it and real dreams will start coming to life. That sounds like it's worth it to me.

I will try to post weekly updates to this blog and document this insane journey. It will be irreverent (we curse), sarcastic, honest, and hopefully inspiring.

Up next: The Big Idea