Writing it out

Writing has been an important part of my life for a very long time. As a child, I tried writing another edition of the fabulous, historic Captain Underpants series. In high school, writing comedy sketches for Cabaret Night was an exciting and defining moment of my development. And more recently, I have used writing to help myself sort through questions, issues, and worries, as well as to document and remember successes.

Throughout the course of building this business, writing has helped me develop ideas, draw out concerns, and record thoughts. I've filled a full yellow pad with notes and drawings, have at least 10 notes on my iPhone, a dozen on Evernote, and various scribbles and ideas all over my class notebook. Anything I think of, or question, or learn, I immediately write down. This helps in two ways: record keeping, and analysis.

"The palest ink is stronger than the best memory." Or something like that. I've heard it, but never has the saying been more applicable to my life than with this business. Here, where every detail matters, where every fact or quote or observation can lead to a light bulb going off, recording conversations I have with advisers and customers, making notes about competitors and the industry, and writing about the progress we've made from start to present all aggregates to help me understand what the business is today, where else it can go, and all of the alternatives to what we might be doing.

While record keeping helps me categorize and monitor my learnings and thoughts, writing also helps understand what I want and can do. Pros and cons lists have become a weekly tradition. I have a number of paths I can take? I make a pros and cons list. I'm deciding between accepting cash or using only cards? Pros and cons list. Deciding on a date to launch? Pros and cons list. These lists help put into perspective the many decisions available, and give me a platform on which to come to defensible conclusions.

Writing all of this down allows me to think through things in a different way. I write for an hour straight, anything and everything that comes to mind, and look over it afterwards. A lot of it is nonsense, but there are always a few hidden jewels in there that help me unlock the answers to questions I grapple with.

So after all of my customer meetings, I sat back at my yellow pad, and began writing. The problem isn't ordering, exactly. Its delivery. If we can solve delivery, customers would flock to us. But why hasn't it been solved? Why isn't it working? What can I do about it? In the next post, I'll talk about the idea that writing led me to. We were obviously moving away from the world's easiest ordering app. Customers told me we have to. But where are we going? That's for next time, but until then,

Much love,

A