Don’t sweat the small stuff, but make damn sure you remember it

// December 14th, 2009 // Communication, Startup

Clients sometimes mutter “he’s crazy…” behind my back, because I’m forever taking photographs and short videos; of conversations, people coding, diagrams we’ve sketched on whiteboards, and anything else that will stay still for long enough.

Why crazy? I understand that sometimes those messy, chaotic moments in startup life seem like the very things you want to forget. You’re on a mission to change the world and I’m taking photos of a three person all-hands meeting? What’s that about?

This is what it’s about: with a few years of hindsight as perspective, some of these will be the moments you miss the most and the things you’d give anything to recapture.

My job title at Doing Words is “Chief Hindsight Officer” for two reasons. I’m not just working with you because I bring the perspective of many startup experiences of my own, I’m also busy capturing as much as possible from your startup’s early history because some of it will be important to you one day.

You won’t know until you look back on it whether the person you’re meeting for a coffee will become the most important hire you ever made. You don’t know if whether that lunch appointment will result in your biggest-ever distribution deal or your biggest-ever waste of time. Perhaps that diagram we just threw up on your whiteboard is a heap of delusional crap, but maybe it includes a significant insight that will one day power not just your business but a whole ecosystem of businesses.

Crazy talk, sure, but not that unusual. And because I’ve missed enough of these pivotal moments of my own, I’m determined to capture yours if I can.

I can’t be there every day, even if you can afford me, so I’ll try to help you understand why it’s important to capture the little moments along the way, and I’ll try to tutor you to remember to capture them yourself when I’m not around.

When you boil it down to a few simple rules, it’s really not that hard. They are:

  • If an external meeting isn’t subject to an NDA that specifically forbids it, try to take a photo.
  • If an internal meeting isn’t disciplinary, try to take a photo and a video.
  • If it goes on a whiteboard, take a photo of it with something like JotNot so the words will be legible.
  • If you aren’t capturing your company processes and business rules in something like a Wiki, start immediately. If you already are, make it a key goal in someone’s metrics to keep it maintained, authoritative and consistent. Trusting it to ‘everyone’ is guaranteed to leave you with a tangled tagliatelli that makes no sense to anyone in a few years’ time.

Of course, there are some startup milestones that nobody needs a prompt to remember: the first time someone invests in your idea, the first time you go cashflow positive, and sometime between the two, the first time you have a paying customer. But there are ways and then there are ways to celebrate these more obvious milestones, and if you don’t make the time to celebrate them properly, then you are selling yourself and your team short.

One very inspiring example of remembering the first customer is this wonderful letter from makedo founder Paul Justin, which accompanied a beautifully packaged recycled cardboard bucket of the company’s creative play craft materials. Yes, Paul goes long on the big picture in his letter, but as his first customer and one of his product’s biggest fans, I want him over-the-top on this, because I’m pretty darned close to the top on it myself.

The text of his letter reads:

Dear First Ever Customer,

This is quite the moment. By receiving this package you have made reality of what was merely an idea one year ago.

Behold Makedo.

You are the first beat of the heart, the first breath of air.

I invite you to get involved and become a spirited presence in the life of makedo.
There is so much potential for what is possible, so many conversations to be had, so many ideas to be thought, and of course things to be created and shared.

We have created makedo.com.au as a place for you to think large, share your voice, express your ideas and inspire the world with your making.

Be part of the journey. Makedo was made for you.

Smiles,
Paul Justin
Inventor and founder of makedo.

Wow! Now that is a startup company that stops to remember the little-stuff-that-could-be-big. Can you tell how exciting it is to be a Makedo customer? Can you imagine how exciting it will be to be a Makedo employee or a Makedo investor? I encourage you to do the same. Don’t sweat the small stuff, but make damn sure you remember it.