There are two worlds in starting this business:
- I’m going to be wildly successful and be able to quit my FT job and buy a house on the beach
- This is going to crumble in the next 20 days and I’m going to lose all my money and have to fire these people that I just hired. At any moment it could all just go poof.
There is no in between. It’s just a game of tennis. This is anxiety. I hope it doesn’t always have to be like this.
When I take a step back and look at the bigger picture though, this is what my last month has looked like (See below). It’s good to sit back and look.
I believe this is going to work out. I do. It will because it’s not some massive risk. It’s very small but sized opportunities. Each client is their own. There is no coordinated systemic risk. I’m not swinging for the fences. I just need a few bunts per month. If bunt 1 misses, it’s uncorrelated with bunt 2. They’ll fall. People see the value. That’s why it’s going to be a slog, but it’s also in my mind worth the hustle.
Dear team.
This week, the following has happened:
- several audits for new customers (thanks @Adrian, @Sean)
- Set up a few customers on GBP (thanks @Adrian!)
- Had dozens of cold calls that are still waiting for me to call them! 5/5 of the people i’ve talked to are interested. Great work @Guil!
- @Sean joined us. he’s working on doing some cold calls and helping with some Local SEO audits. Welcome Sean!
- No new deasl this week, Had several people say they’ll pay next week. one cold call from @Guil , and two of my friends. Once this happens, we’re no longer losing money! (good for you - means you get more employment for years to come!) A lot of people are busy july 3-5 because of the holiday.
- Built out a website http://www.precisionconcretebayarea.com from @Joshua Dumalag. Congrats Josh! A few more finishing touches and the customer will be really happy!
- Made a pitch to a big apartment company. Hoping they close in the coming weeks.
- @Lou Elton Evasco started working with our customer CGRE to help with ads.
- @VeNae Rosdahl built our customer’s ads in Canva.
- We launched http://docs.silvermineai.com/services and other websites to share out to customers.
- We did a ton of behind-the-scenes work like onboarding flow @Mark Jayson Realino. just check asana for all the tasks Mark has put out!
- Spoke with a dental group (2 locations) that wants us. The marketer is sold (wife of the husband dentist), she just needs to check with her team. This could be a ~2k/mo deal!
Housekeeping: - I paid most people as of the time of this post. if you haven’t been paid, check your DM’s.
Next week: - Goal: sign 2 deals out of 3-4 that are hopeful. None are more than 2 weeks old since Guil’s first cold call, it typically takes 3-4 fweeks to close. @Guil’s confident that within time a lot of these folks will
Team notes: - Thank you for all the work that you’re doing. As of June 7, none of you existed to me. Now we have 7 paid staff, 6 paying customers ($1515/mo MRR - all friends and family). This was an incredibly wild month. I honestly didn’t think this was really possible, but here we are. - I think we have our team - we’re ready to scale to Ads and Social media, and we have plenty of support on Local SEO work. We’ll focus on growing our business for the next month. - I’m invested in helping each of you grow in your careers. Where there’s hard work, I recognize it! I’ve already given 2 raises. I see what you put in! I want to support you and your families for years to come. - We’re all learning together. Thanks for your patience. I apologize if I’m not immediately responsive to every question. - When in doubt, take some actions and just let me know what you did! I doubt anyone is capable of messing anything up - you’re all really smart and experienced. I may ask for some revisions, but I don’t want to slow you down.
Let’s go!!
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Bryan lives somewhere at the intersection of faith, fatherhood, and futurism and writes about tech, books, Christianity, gratitude, and whatever’s on his mind. If you liked reading, perhaps you’ll also like subscribing: