My 2023 goals.

Alright, I've been putting this off for far too long now.

I planned to write this sometime in December to start the year knowing my goals. But I got busy with various things and started another 30 days project that ended on December 31st.

But, really, I didn't make time for it.

I didn't make time for it because I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted out of this year.

Last year I had a lot of goals for each of my five categories: Health, Relationships, Work, Wealth, and Experiences, and I accomplished some of them while completely ignoring the other half.

This doesn't really bother me, though, as I do think it's good to aim for more than I might be able to accomplish, as I'll still end up further along than where I would have been if I had planned more conservatively. But what does bother me is some of the goals have been on my list for a couple of years now, and I have nothing to show for them.

So should they be goals for me or not? Do they actually matter to me or do I just think I should want them? Or am I too intimidated by them to try and accomplish them?

Part of, or maybe the whole problem of, having too many goals means I can choose to work on the ones I know I'm more likely to achieve. This way, I can feel like I'm successful at some things while simultaneously justifying why I'm ignoring others. This means that while I end the year accomplishing some things, they may not be the things that would make a difference in my life.

So for this year, I aim to accomplish less and achieve more.

And like last year's article, this one is for me too. I don't expect you to read this, but if you're interested, let's get started.

Format.

I'm using the same category framework I followed in last year's review to track and understand how I spend my time across these five categories: Health, Relationships, Work, Wealth, and Experiences. These articles will look the same every year unless I have a reason to change them.

Additionally, I will define two new Themes for the year to build on the two from last year.

Themes.

Last year my themes were Intensity and Inevitability.

Now, as I'm thinking about this year and doing less, if I can still maintain an intensity with my work, then maybe some of my secondary goals will inevitably be accomplished as a result of my focusing on my more ambitious goal(s).

The point is not to give myself any excuses this time next year.

Which makes my 2023 themes, Speed and Consistency.

Speed.

A bad habit of mine is overthinking my ideas.

I spend a lot of time thinking about whether something is a good idea, how I'd do it, or what it would be like to achieve the outcome I want.

Rather than getting started and learning along the way, I think about doing the work.

Now, obviously, planning isn't all bad, and there are plenty of benefits to thinking about what could happen and what to avoid. But there's a point when I need to decide a move on.

So, the risk for me focusing on speed means I could get involved in too many things because it's easier to say yes than think about everything else I've already committed to. But, that said, I'd rather quickly decide to do something and then quickly get out of it if it's not what I thought it would be than miss an opportunity because I didn't decide fast enough.

But speed, to me, isn't only about what to work on. It's also about taking action quickly.

If I need to do something, I should do it immediately or as soon as possible, so I'm always making progress.

Focusing on speed is about becoming someone with momentum and being known for taking action.

Consistency.

Then, the other side of Speed, is Consistency.

I can't build momentum if I jump from one thing to another. This has also been a challenge of mine for as long as I can remember. And I think it stems from when I grew up where you couldn't just be good at one thing, you had to be good at a lot of things. And if you still weren't trying to do even more, then you weren't doing enough.

And, while it's good to sample a lot of things when you're growing up because odds are you don't know what you actually like, but at a certain point, you have to commit to something. Otherwise, you'll get caught chasing something new every chance you — I — get, and you'll never do something long enough to get truly great at it.

Tragically, for a while I thought I was great at getting pretty good at almost everything. But that was a cute lie I'm unwilling to accept any longer.

So, this year I'm committing to focusing on what's important to me and making sure it's something I want and can do every day for as long as I can imagine.

Goals.

I believe this year will be a standout year with the most change I've experienced since graduating from college.

So, as I commit to this year, I'm rethinking how I approach my goals.

I'm going to have one overall goal for the year, which I will track incessantly. Then, while I'll track my other goals, I won't be as concerned about my progress as I don't want them to distract me from the one thing I'm focusing on.

As long as I'm being consistent with them, that's good.

My one goal will be a SMART goal: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. And my other goals will be FUN goals: Flexible, Uplifting, and Numberless.

My one SMART goal is related to Work and Wealth, while every other goal is a FUN goal.

Health.

I haven't had much success number-chasing my fitness goals.

When I do achieve numbered fitness goals I unfortunately get a bit complacent and regress. Instead, I'd rather be more consistent and steadily increase my output than worry about how much I weigh or my body fat percentage.

As long as I look and feel like an athlete, I'm good.

• Workout consistently, don't go more than one day without doing something

• Increase my output and don't get complacent

• Eat more whole foods

Relationships.

My relationship goals all center around time. I want to be more intentional about spending time with the people I care about. Which means it's not just more time. Rather, it's that the time we spend together is meaningful.

• Fiancé — Recognize the changing needs of the relationship and how I show up

• Family — Show up and be present, create memorable moments

• Friends — Initiate plans, don't wait for invitations

Work.

Aside from having too many work-related goals last year, they were also at odds with each other.

Some were focused on creating my own businesses, while others were about how I was perceived at my job. 

But, the thing is, I don't see myself as an employee. Instead, I see myself as an entrepreneur. The problem with this, obviously, is I spend most of my time working a job for someone else. So, my reality and how I think of myself are incongruent. There's a tension there that won't go away until I do something about it, which is why I only have one work-related goal this year.

• Become economically independent

How I can create this reality is with my Wealth goal.

Wealth.

My Work and Wealth goals are inextricable, and my Wealth goal is the one SMART goal I'm tracking this year.

• Specific — Replace my salaried income

• Measurable — Generate $10,000 per month from sales of digital products

• Achievable — Sell 11 $30 products per day

• Relevant — Attract an audience interested in branding and product design, and content production

• Time-Bound — Have one $10,000 month in 2023

This is it. This is my goal for the year. Whatever I do needs to have this in mind. Every decision I make will either get me closer or further to achieving this. It's that simple, and I need to check in on this every day.

Experiences.

Rather than focus on big moments, I want everything to feel special. What can I do to make even the most mundane things feel beautifully thought through?

• Find or create magic in every moment

Easy vs. Simple.

Breaking down my goal of making $10,000 per month from selling digital products is incredibly straightforward. Create something I can sell for $30 and then get 11 people to buy it every day. Simple. But simple doesn't mean easy. Creating content and getting the right type of attention is hard.

But I'm confident I can do this as I have the foundational skills to get started. I've created and sold digital products before. I've created content and am comfortable on camera. I can do all these things and know I'm good at them. I've done it before. To do more, I need to increase my speed and consistency when creating content and be relentless in promoting it.

So, is it easy? No. But it's what I want to do, and I'm committed to figuring out how to make it happen.

I'm looking forward to checking in at the end of the year.

If you're interested in following my progress, follow me on @wesjonesco on Instagram.

Looking back on 2022.

I’ve kind of been putting this off — which is unlike me.

I think though, it’s because I was hoping I’d have something more concrete figured out by the end of 2022 and I don’t feel like I do. A lot of good things happened this year, but I still feel like I’m not fully on the path I want to be on.

Something I’ve been thinking about this year is the tension between wanting to be on one path and the reality of being on another. The hard part I think is when the two paths look quite similar from the outside. Objectively, I should be happy with where I’m at because I get to do things closely related to what I want. But I’m not. And, I think it makes it worse.

Because the life I want to be living is so close to what I’m currently doing it’s tough to figure out why I can’t make the transition and fully commit to the path I want to be on. It’s so close yet I seemingly can’t figure out how to make it real. The truth is, I know I’m the one getting in my own way and to make any progress I have to overcome whatever mental block I’m fighting against.

Also, this point is all about work. Everything else has been mostly great this year and I think it’s because I was intentional about what I was going to do and then I went and did it.

Format.

I’m using the same framework I set up last year. I did this so I could revisit it each year and compare what I thought I’d do to what actually happened.

The five categories are: Health, Relationships, Work, Wealth, and Experiences. 

While I can easily fit most everything into these categories, if something doesn’t I’ll put it in whatever one makes the most sense.

Then, again like last year, I have a Stop, Start, Continue section quickly covering what’s been good in 2022 and what I want to change heading into 2023.

Next year I should print these out along with my 2023 goals so they’re more present and I can make sure I’m doing the things I said I wanted to. This year I opened my 2022 goals article a couple of times but only when I’d forgotten what I wrote down. I’ll be better off in 2023 if I’m reviewing my goals most consistently.

Life.

Overall, I improved in some areas while I mostly stayed the same in others.

Health.

I started the year off strong with an eight week kettlebell program. I’d never really used kettlebells but I was intrigued by the functional nature of them and figured it would be a good tool to get fit in the way I want to be.

My goal last year was to gain 15 pounds of muscle. Which I did not do. But I did get leaner in the first half of the year as well as got stronger.

The problem, though, is I wasn’t consistent enough. The kettlebell program took a lot of time per day and once it was over I stopped allocating so much time to it. That said, I didn’t stop working out entirely and I was pretty consistent with a mix of cardio and strength training the rest of the year.

Not being consistent with a training style or upping my intensity appropriately meant I’m ending the year pretty much where I started. I’m probably a bit better than I was but not materially like I’d hoped.

I also didn’t prioritize stretching at all like I wanted and that may be one of the reasons I didn’t see the gains I wanted to.

Relationships.

Relationships are everything and I’m more grateful for them this year than I’ve ever been. It’s probably because of the stage of life I’m in but I think having a solid group of people I can rely on and who can rely on me will mean more to me than trying to fit into a group I don't belong to.

Fiancé.

My girlfriend and I got engaged on November 11, 2022 — 11.11.22.

While I always knew she was the one, I’d been seriously thinking about proposing for 10 months or so and started planning for it around June. With so many variables I had to account for I’m glad how easily everything came together and the day was as special as it should be.

While we’ve been bringing our lives together over the past few years I’m most excited for this next stage of commitment and building the life we want together.

Family.

I can’t quantify it but one of my goals for this year was to spend more meaningful time together with my family and I feel like I’ve done that. And while I’ve done a lot with my fiancé’s family prior to getting engaged, I also feel like I’ve become closer with them.

Friends.

This year I didn’t expand my friend group like I thought I would but I feel it’s stronger than it’s been before. I think this is because I let go of some friends where the relationship was no longer there, I didn’t try and force anything with people I tangentially knew, and I deepened the relationship I have with some people.

Something I’ve been thinking about with this is the nature and seasons of life. There will be times when I and other people fit in with each other and other times when we fall out of touch. This isn’t good or bad, it’s just the way things go and we should be happy with the time we had and be welcoming if we come back into each other’s orbits at a later time. I think mostly both sides have to be invested in the relationship and if one isn’t then it’s ok to let it fade. It’s not worth forcing anything that doesn’t feel natural.

Work.

This year again proved something to me I’ve known for a long time.

I don’t control my life if I’m an employee.

Employer.

This year I wanted to be promoted but given the economy, pullback from clients, and internal restructuring the company significantly paused providing any progression opportunities. Now, I understand a macro economic slow down can affect such things and if I was doing something else I’d feel it too, but it’s a different game if I were in control of my opportunities versus waiting for a company to say I’m worthy. This is especially true when I’m not confident my boss has the ability to advocate for me within the system to help provide opportunities to me.

Something I’ve been told before and again the other day is, if there’s not someone ahead of me who I want to learn from and emulate, and if I don’t see a path forward then I’m in the wrong place and need to change my circumstance so I can have those growth opportunities.

And, while I’m not getting these things with my employer, that’s why I have things like Liip and the other projects I’ve started.

Liip.

This was our first full year with Liip and the first time getting into retail. While we were exclusively online in 2021 and did well, starting to sell wholesale in 2022 changed everything. Lip balm is clearly an impulse type purchase and being able to work with buyers who can help us merchandise the product at their point of sale puts us right where we need to be.

This year we found success working with specialty grocery stores. While initially we thought we wanted to go to more boutique outdoor stores, what we missed with that was the idea of foot traffic and the frequency people return to them. People may go to a boutique a couple of times a year whereas they’re going to the grocery store once a week at least.

What helped most was leveraging our connections so we were getting in touch with the right people at each of these stores. Then, once we were in a few we were able to use them as credibility to reach out to more. We also decided to focus on Michigan instead of the whole country. We figure if we can capture this market then it will be natural to expand beyond. And, given it’s just the two of us right now, Michigan is something we can handle as that’s where we live.

Projects.

One of my goals for this year was to write more. I said I wanted to have 20 articles published on this site as well as articles on Liip. I accomplished those but after I reached the targets I set I mostly stopped. The thing is, I like writing, but it’s not easy for me. I don’t get energized by it. I wish I did, because I love the outcome but it’s hard to get motivated when there are other things I’m naturally better at.

Something I did to end the year was to create 30 Instagram Reels in 30 Days. I did this because I’ve always loved creating videos and photos but I haven’t been doing it much at all the last couple of years. I loved it and I’m going to keep doing it. So when I say I want to create content, maybe video and photo is what I need to be my primary focus and then writing is something that supports it. To me it’s all kind of the same things, it’s just picking whatever medium I’m most passionate about and likely to keep creating with.

Wealth.

With the market down this year I don’t know that I reached any of my dollar amount goals.

But that said, I simplified my investing strategy and have been dollar cost averaging all year long, so eventually when the market rebounds I should be in a good position having lowered my cost basis.

I also didn’t reach my goal of making an extra $100 a day from other projects. Liip got close but all of that money stays in the business so it really doesn’t mean anything for me personally right now. The reason I didn’t achieve this was because I was still searching for the thing that would make it possible to do. I kept trying different things instead of committing to one and seeing what I could do with it.

Increasing my wealth is going to be one of my primary goals for 2023.

Experiences.

We didn’t fly much this year other than one trip to Florida and another to Colorado. But because we weren’t gone a lot we were able to spend a lot of time in northern Michigan. This is something we missed out on during the pandemic and fully took advantage of again this year.

Traveling is fun but my feelings toward it and my expectations have definitely changed though I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for just yet.

Stop, start, continue.

Things I want to stop doing, start doing, and what I want to continue doing in 2023.

Stop.

What am I doing now that I no longer want to do?

• Health - Stop over indulging on sweets

• Relationships - Expecting new connections to come to me

• Work - Jumping from one idea to another

• Wealth - Not allowing myself to enjoy experiences because I don’t think I have enough money

• Experiences - Saying yes to things I don’t want to do

Start.

What am I not doing that I want to start doing?

• Health - Getting body scans

• Relationships - Being an initiator of plans

• Work - Commit to a select few projects with one underlying theme

• Wealth - Generating more short term income

• Experiences - Having more micro experiences

Continue.

What am I doing now that I want to keep doing?

• Health - Consistently workout

• Relationships - Making time for meaningful interactions

• Work - Challenging myself to become a creator

• Wealth - Investing aggressively

• Experiences - Exploring what travel and experiences means to me

Alright, that’s it.

And like I said, I need to print this out and revisit it more often throughout next year so I can keep myself accountable and adjust depending on whatever happens.

If you’ve read all of this let me know on Twitter, @wesjonesco, I’d love to know what you thought and what kept you reading.

Why I spent $1,545 on SEO courses.

I just spent $1,545 on SEO courses.

Is $1,545 a lot of money? Yes.

Is $1,545 relatively a lot of money? If I do what I say I'm going to, hopefully not.

Here’s why.

Overcommitting forces me to do something.

If I know there's something I want to do, but for whatever reason, I am hesitant about taking the next step, I overcommit by doing the one thing I otherwise try and avoid. I spend money — enough to make it hurt.

After some initial success launching my DTC brand, Liip, I overcommitted by ordering 10,000 lip balm tubes because I knew that would make me take it seriously and turn it into a business. I did it again with Liip when I started paying for ads before I knew how to run them so I would learn how to do it profitably.

If I didn't overcommit, I know I would spend too much time thinking, researching, and analyzing whatever I want to do to the point that it's no longer interesting to me or I've missed the opportunity.

So, for me, I sometimes simply need to force myself to commit to what I say I want to do by raising the stakes and putting some money on the line.

Right now, that's how I'm learning SEO.

And I don't just want to learn it, but start implementing it so I can make my money back.

Ideally, I'll earn back quite a bit more than my $1,545 investment. The upside could be limitless.

My plan is to use Liip as a playground to test what I learn and prove to myself I can do this kind of work. Then eventually, I'll offer SEO and content marketing services to other companies. Doing this is another step in my evolution as I work toward what I really want to be doing.

My path toward SEO and content marketing.

I got into advertising because I wanted to learn how to grow businesses.

Now, I've seen a lot of the creative side and how to produce work, but the problem with agencies is that they don't want to be tied to revenue or growth goals because it's never a sure thing if their work is going to affect the bottom line or not. But with SEO and content marketing, I think I can do that where the content I create can be directly attributed to revenue and the metrics that signal business growth.

So, that's why I'm doing this, and I'll get there eventually, but first, here are the courses I bought, why I chose them, and how I'm going to put them to work.

And, like I said, I've worked at advertising agencies for over seven years. First, as a project manager, and more recently, as a content strategist. 

The only reason I bring this up is to say I'm not entirely unfamiliar with content marketing and SEO, just that I don't have a ton of experience creating and implementing it myself. Which is what I'm trying to fix with these courses.

Three reasons why I choose paid courses over resources I could find for free.

One. I know I can probably find all of the info in these courses online for free. I don't doubt that for a second. But I also know I would probably have to spend a lot more time searching for it and having to decide for myself what's reputable or not. Paying for this information gives me a shortcut to validated, high-quality content. The point is to implement these strategies as fast as possible, not just reading and thinking.

Second. I could have picked one of these courses to start with and then gotten another once I completed the first. And if I were just starting or unsure if I wanted to do this, then that'd be the way to go. But I know this is what I want to do, and by having these three courses, I've defined a curriculum and removed having to make decisions about how I will learn. Knowing where my information is coming from means, I won't have to think about anything other than going through the courses and practicing what I'm learning.

Third. The whole point of this article. I'm committed. Now it's on me to figure this out and make my investment worthwhile.

My SEO curriculum.

For what it's worth, I did take one SEO course, Nat Eliason's SEO for Solopreneurs, earlier this year before I purchased these other three. So I did do the thing I said above about starting with one to see if this is something I'd want to explore further. That and I've been reading a bunch of free articles, which I'll have to share the best of another time.

I guess I got to a point where if I wanted to take this seriously, I would have to do something to get to the next level.

So here are the three courses I bought, why I chose them, and what I hope to get out of them.

Also, they're in the order I'm going to take them if that matters to you.

Lean SEO by Pat Walls - $249.

I first heard about Pat Walls and Lean SEO on the 30 Minutes of Growth podcast a few months ago.

I'd been thinking about trying out content marketing with Liip but wasn't sure how much time or money I'd need to invest if I wanted to do it right. But, from my work experience and a general sense of things, it seemed like it'd be a lot. And mainly a lot of time because I wasn't going to pay other people to write for me. At least not yet. I like writing, and I think I'm ok to somewhat good at it, but it's something I have to work at as it doesn't come easily to me.

So when I heard Pat Walls talking about his Lean SEO method, I was intrigued.

His idea to take the minimum viable product concept from startups and adapt it to content made sense to me.

Lean SEO is a content strategy that runs minimum viable content tests for 30 days. After which, you evaluate how things are going, tweak what you can, cut what's not working, and double down on what is.

The point is to not waste time on things you don't know will work or not.

I know SEO is a long game, but as I'm just getting started, the quicker I can see results in my analytics, the better, which is exactly what Lean SEO promises to teach. Not that it will guarantee results, but that I will learn a framework to quickly and effectively test and validate my content ideas.

SEO Blueprint 2 by Glen Allsopp - $597.

In addition to growing my businesses, part of the reason I'm doing this is to start freelancing again and be able to offer SEO and content marketing services to clients.

I think the easiest and most low-risk way to do that is to offer SEO audits which won't take me a lot of time and aren't a significant investment for a client. Audits are great because, most often, they will always reveal some number of actionable quick wins that make the investment worth it.

I can also give audits away for free as a way into opportunities if they're interesting to me. This makes audits the best tactic I have for getting more into this kind of work.

Now, there's much more to SEO Blueprint 2 that I'm excited to learn, but there's a whole section on auditing that I think will make this entire course worth it as it will give me the ability to confidently start offering audits I know people will get value from.

After looking at the structure of the courses, I'll probably do the beginning sections of SEO Blueprint 2 and then switch over to the next course, Grow and Convert, before coming back to the second half of SEO Blueprint 2.

SEO Blueprint 2 has sections on content creation, but it seems the real value is in the technical SEO modules. That, and because I want to learn the Grow and Convert Paint Point SEO content strategy. I think their bottom of the funnel focus is exactly the type of content I need to know how to create to generate the business outcomes I want to achieve.

Grow and Convert Course - $699.

The Grow and Convert blog is full of incredibly detailed posts, and I'm sure a lot of what's in their course can be found here for free. 

But knowing that, I still paid seven hundred dollars for their course for these three reasons.

First, if the quality of their free content indicates what I can expect inside the course, then I know this will be worth it. And while I said most everything seems to be available for free, I'm looking for insight into the framework and ways to think. So, while they outline their Pain Point SEO strategy in this blog post, I'm hoping they get more into the nuance and insights they've learned from implementing this strategy over time. Whatever mistakes they've made and can help me avoid will be a bonus.

Second, the course is structured around case studies. And not just their projects but their work for clients across different industries. They're not just showing one example and expecting me to understand how it applies to my business. Instead, they show examples of how it works for B2B, B2C, SaaS, Services, and eCommerce businesses. Doing this proves the strategy is adaptable and not just something that worked once or works in specific instances. I'm confident I, too, will be able to learn the method and apply it.

Then lastly, and this is the most important reason for me, the Grow and Convert philosophy is about creating content that positively impacts a business's bottom line. Their success is determined by their ability to help their clients achieve their business goals. So not only are they aligned with the brand, they're incentivized to produce work that moves them forward.

At this point, I've gone from a broader start with the initial course, SEO for Solopreneurs, and gotten much more tactical with Lean SEO, SEO Blueprint 2, and Grow and Convert.

What I hope to learn.

The purpose of this curriculum is to acquire the knowledge, skill set, and tools to start freelancing again with a specific offering and eventually turn it into a complete, done-for-you content marketing agency capable of launching and growing businesses.

The main things I hope to learn from each of these courses to help me achieve that are:

• I want to learn a lightweight testing framework with Lean SEO.

• I want to learn how to deliver valuable content audits with SEO Blueprint 2.

• I want to learn how to create content that moves people to purchase with Grow and Convert.

Running my own business has always been the vision I've had for my career, and I'm finally taking control and doing what I need to to make it happen. So this isn't step one, but it's the next step after seven years of working at advertising agencies and learning the business.

What I know about courses.

All that said, I think it's important to acknowledge these courses won't make a difference on their own. I could go through them, and nothing could change.

Instead, it's what I do with the information that matters.

It's up to me to make this worth it and create the outcome I want.

So, while these courses aren't a shortcut, I'm glad I have them to teach me the frameworks I should work within.

That's why overcommitting only works when you know what you want to do.

When to overcommit.

You shouldn't overcommit to something you're not sure about.

Overcommit only when there's something you know you want to do but still find yourself not getting started. Overcommitting forces you into action by putting something on the line. For me, it's spending money. Though spending money might not be what does it for you. You'll have to figure out whatever your thing is.

So that's why I spent $1,545 on SEO courses.

I knew I wanted to do this, and I was tired of avoiding it or making excuses like I didn't have enough time or whatever else I'd been telling myself. I knew if I didn't do something soon, I'd lose my motivation and look back six months from now, wishing I'd started when I wanted to.

Overcommitting has worked for me in the past, and I know it will work again with this.

It's the one life hack I've found that helps me skip the busy work and do the things that matter.

Gravity Metrics: The DTC metrics that matter.

Profit is the only metric that matters.

It's that simple.

Without profit, you won't be able to sustain whatever you're doing. Either you can fund the business with cash flow. Or, you'll need to do things like give up equity or take on debt to extend your runway while trying to figure out how to not run out of money.

Getting backed into a corner because you don't have enough cash on hand isn't fun and doesn't leave many options.

All you have to worry about is profit.

Profit is what makes business possible.

But while profit is the only thing that matters, if you've just launched your business, you might not be making any yet. There's going to be a time between starting the business, when you break even, and when you start making money you can invest back into the business.

So, in the time you're not generating any profit, there are a handful of metrics you need to be tracking that will indicate whether you're heading in the right direction or not. And honestly, these are the only metrics you need to worry about once you start making a profit as well.

These are what I call Gravity Metrics. They're close to the money and illustrate how efficiently and effectively a company operates. They're not vanity metrics meant to make us feel good but distract us from what we really need to be doing. No, these are the DTC metrics that actually matter.

If you make decisions with these in mind and they're going in the right direction, everything else will work itself out.

To illustrate this, let's think about our businesses as a sailboat. It doesn't matter what size boat you're thinking of as the mechanics are all the same big or small.

Businesses should be like sailboats, elegant, sophisticated, and focused on one thing.

For fun, I like to picture my boat like this one, an elegant and sophisticated racing yacht. I mean, we all have to be working toward something, right?

Profit.

I've said this already, but I can't say it enough, profit is the most important metric for you to track. It's the money left over after you pay all of your expenses. It's Revenue, all the money you made, minus your Expenses, all the money you spend.

Now, it's ok to invest all of the money you make back into the business and not have anything left over. Tracking profit doesn't just mean stockpiling a bunch of cash you don't know what to do with. Though that can be a smart thing to do in case you ever need it.

Profit allows you to keep going if the wind ever dies down.

I also put it at the top of the list because I think it's the most important DTC metric, but it's not the first one you're going to really see. Instead, it comes from tracking all the metrics to follow.

Traffic.

Some people consider traffic a vanity metric because it's not directly related to generating revenue.

But I think that's the wrong way to think about it.

Traffic is the wind in your sails. It's the people paying attention to what you're doing and visiting your site or storefront. It's the fundamental energy that makes business possible. Without it, you don't have a business. You have an idea.

The key to traffic, though, is ensuring you're in the right place to attract the right kind of attention with the right way to capture some of it. There can be a lot of wind, but if you don't have the right boat or are trying to go in the wrong direction, the attention and traffic won't matter.

That's why we also have to care about our conversion rate once we have traffic.

Conversion Rate.

Conversion rate measures how effective you are at turning your traffic into revenue.

Conversion rate matters because it lets you know whether your marketing is working or not.

If you're able to get a lot of people visiting your site, but they don't buy anything, then you know something isn't right. Maybe your copy isn't clear, or the offer isn't compelling enough to convince them to buy. Either way, if something isn't right, conversion rate is a good place to start looking for clues into what might not be working.

For our sailboat analogy, your conversion rate is how effectively your sails capture the wind. The more wind you can harness, the faster the boat will go.

Also, it's important to know that conversion rate standards are different for every industry and niche, so there's no ideal conversion rate you should be tracking against. Instead, you need to research and find benchmarks for similar products.

Then, after achieving a solid conversion rate, you need to focus on increasing your Average Order Value.

Average Order Value.

Average Order Value, or AOV, is how strong the wind blows.

A high AOV means you're generating more revenue per order than expected. Instead of buying one product, people are buying multiple or different kinds of products. You can entice people to do this by offering volume incentives or bundling products.

The benefit of doing this is the more revenue an order generates, the less overhead it takes to service the order since there will be less to deal with than if you had many small orders.

For a newer brand, a high AOV means people like your product and are comfortable paying for it.

Customer Lifetime Value.

Now, while AOV is important, the true measure of success is Customer Lifetime Value or how much someone buys over time.

As a new brand, you probably can't calculate this just yet as you haven't been around long enough to actually know. But, what you can figure out is how many people become repeat purchasers and how long they went in between orders.

Ideally, people will buy again and buy often as this will lower your customer acquisition costs. Knowing this will also help you predict future revenue and gauge how much inventory you need to keep on hand. Because it's one thing to make a product people will buy. But it's another to create something people will buy again and tell their friends about. It's a measure of loyalty and proof you have a viable business.

Customer Lifetime value is the constant breeze that keeps your business moving toward profits.

Pay attention to what matters.

Obviously, there are more than just these five metrics.

But I don't think you need to worry about them until you have to. You don't want to get caught up optimizing for something that doesn't materially affect your business, that doesn't get you closer to profitability. Because who cares if you have an incredible Instagram CPM if the people ultimately aren't converting?

These five DTC metrics are leading indicators.

They're going to show you the overall health of your business. If things are trending in the right direction, then all good. But if one of these gravity metrics isn't trending how you think it should be, it's telling you to drop down a level or two and see what's going on.

These will help you focus on what's important and direct your attention to problems when they come up.

The trap of only focusing on profit.

And while all we need to care about is generating profit, one thing to be aware of is that profit is great, but it masks a lot of problems. So make sure you're not oblivious to or neglecting something just because there's money coming in. Because if something ever changes and the money slows down or stops altogether, you might not be able to figure out those problems quickly enough to save the business if you've ignored fundamental issues for too long.

Also, there will be times when it seems like profit doesn't matter and people are rewarding other things. Inevitably, though, people always come back to caring about profit when the market turns. So don't lose sight of it. It's your most important metric.

How to find product-market fit before launch.

I’ve quit so many projects.

Not because they weren’t good. But because I was afraid of what people would think if I talked about them.

So instead of launching the things I was spending so much time on, I’d move on to something else.

I’d rationalize this by saying things like it wasn’t good enough, my new idea is better, or the timing wasn’t right.

But really, I was afraid of it failing.

I was afraid of finding out what other people thought.

This is because I never told anyone about what I was working on. Instead, I’d work on every project quietly by myself, waiting until I thought it was “perfect” before saying anything.

But, even when I felt like something was perfect, I still wouldn’t tell anyone about it.

And the few times I did, no one cared. Maybe some people said it was cool or whatever, but nothing ever felt like it had enough interest to make me want to take it further. 

So I wouldn’t.

And, of course, I knew my first few things probably weren’t going to work out, so it was ok to think of them as learning experiences when I quit them. But after trying time and again to get something off the ground, I got tired of starting one thing after another to only give up and start all over.

After enough times of this happening, I finally realized the problem was me. I was quitting not because I thought the ideas were bad but because I didn’t want to find out what other people thought of it.

By not launching my projects, I could at least say I was successful in building the initial thing without the risk of finding out what others might think of it.

It was a personal success but not a public success. I was getting in my own way.

By not talking about what I was working on, no one else was emotionally invested in these projects like I was. And when I did have a project I wanted to talk about, no one knew why they should care or how much work it took to get to that point.

So when they didn’t care, it felt personal even though it wasn’t at all. They just had no reason to care.

Realizing this is when I decided I’d make sure people were aware of what I was doing the next time I started something.

Now, of course, we’ve all heard the advice to launch before you’re ready and that you should be embarrassed by your first iteration. And, as much as we know that’s right, it’s still hard to do because it’s not always clear what that means.

So, here are three simple ways to talk about your idea before it’s ready, get people emotionally invested, and generate interest so your idea has the momentum it needs to turn into a real business.

Finally doing these things made all of the difference for me.

Have people tell you what they want.

While you might have intuition and personal insight into the problem you’re solving, the market, and your target audience, you don’t want to base everything on your assumptions.

Instead of guessing, you want to be sure you’re right about what you know.

And, to do that, you’re going to ask people to fill out a survey.

This will help you learn how people talk about products like yours, the industry you’re in, what’s important to them, and what they don’t care about. 

Ultimately this tells you who your customers really are.

And depending on the product or service you’re planning to develop, you can likely send this survey to your friends, family, and people you work with. That group should be enough people to get you started. And, when you send it to them, you can always ask them to forward it to anyone else they know who might be interested. 

Hopefully, people will forward it as this will help you get some unbiased opinions, as most of the people you know will probably try to confirm what you’re already thinking.

Then, if you want people to actually complete your survey, you have to make sure it’s not overly complicated or takes a lot of time to complete. No more than a few minutes.

Remember, they’re doing you a favor by doing this for you, so it shouldn’t be more than five or so questions, and they shouldn’t be hard to answer.

Your market survey should have questions like:

• Do you use products like this

• What’s your favorite product like this

• How often do you use products like this

• What do you like about products like this

• What don’t you like about products like this

All you’re looking for is a bit of confirmation on what you’re thinking and insight on what’s important to people.

And, of course, ask for their contact information and if it’s ok for you to follow up. Because remember, the real point of this is to get people invested in the outcome of your project, which is why the next thing we’re going to do is send them samples to test and give you feedback.

Validate your product with early adopters.

Now that you have a bit of insight into your audience and what they want, you can’t stop there.

As soon as you’re ready, you need to share a prototype with them so they can give you feedback and help you shape it into something people will buy.

You can’t wait until it’s “perfect” because it never will be, and you need other people’s input to help you make something they’re willing to pay for.

Getting this real-world feedback will also help you protect against scope creep and thinking you need to add more things to whatever you’re building so people will like it more. If you let that happen, you’ll often end up with a product no one wants rather than something you know they want.

So, give people samples and ask them for honest feedback with open-ended questions like:

• What did you like about this

• What don’t you like about this

• Would you recommend this

• If yes, what would you say

• If no, why not

• Anything else I should know

Answers to these questions will give you insight into what people value and how they talk about your product which can help guide how you market it when it comes time to launch.

And not only do these answers help guide you in the right direction, but they also give these people a sense of ownership as they see their feedback influencing the product through the various iterations. This gives these people a reason to help promote your product and make it successful once it’s ready to launch as they’ve had a hand in it.

Attract more customers with social proof.

Ok, so I know we’re skipping a lot here, and it’s really hard to create a new product. But let’s agree you’ve done your customer research, developed a prototype, and have been getting iterative feedback along the way that’s gotten you to a product you’re happy with.

So, the next thing to do is launch your brand and product.

And, now, the best part is you know it’s going to work because a bunch of people have already tried it and like it. On top of that, you have a solid list of people asking when it’s going to be available because you’ve been talking about what you’re working on and sharing the process from the start. Awesome. That’s exactly what you want.

But the one tricky thing at this point is that most, if not all, of these people are people you either know directly or are friends of friends. These people will buy and support whatever you do because they know you, which will be great for the first few days. But, unfortunately, that list of people you know, or kind of know, is going to run out pretty quickly.

So what will you do to convince the people who don’t know you?

For that, you’re going to need social proof.

People like knowing other people have had a good experience with something before they’re willing to buy it too.

So, this isn’t really something else you have to do, but while you’re validating your product with those early adopters, ask them to leave a review or give you a testimonial you can put on your site to show people that others are using and liking it.

In their reviews, you can ask them to talk about things like:

• What do they like about your product

• What has your product solved for them

• What products have they replaced now that they have yours

• What makes your product unique

Then, of course, set up a system to automatically request reviews from all of the people who buy in those initial days to show there’s momentum with more positive reactions.

The subtle difference is now, instead of building anticipation with the people you know by sharing parts of the process with them. You’re trying to make other people feel like they’re missing out if they don’t have your product because of what everyone else is saying.

Why you shouldn’t be afraid to launch your product early.

What this all comes down to isn’t so much about these tactics, but about being comfortable sharing things before you think they’re ready.

What you have to remember is, very few people are trying to do anything more than just get by. So at worst, someone who hasn’t ever tried to do something will say your idea is dumb. And, at best, people will think it’s cool that you’re trying something new.

So, care about the people who think it’s cool and use these tactics to validate your ideas and get people invested in helping you turn your idea into a business.

Want to know exactly what to say when you’re asking people what they think about your idea? I go over all of it and give you word-for-word templates in my 5-Day Brand Bootcamp.

Brand Bootcamp

$25.00

The Brand Bootcamp is a 5-day, self-paced email course guiding you step-by-step through validating an idea, designing your brand, and getting your first sales.

Full of tools, tactics, templates, and strategies, you’ll learn what’s worth worrying about now, what you can figure out later, and how to effortlessly make decisions as you continue building your brand.

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Lean eCommerce tech stack.

Some of the links in this article may be affiliate links.

Using the right tools for your business will make all the difference.

But, figuring out which to use can sometimes feel harder than coming up with your idea and starting your brand. With so many options, it's easy to get stuck overthinking what the best setup will be. Especially if you don't have experience setting up an eCommerce tech stack already. 

It feels this way because it seems like you're making a decision you have to stick with forever. And it's tough when you don't know exactly what you need or what your business will look like five or ten years from now.

So, the best thing you can do is to keep things simple.

Select platforms that do a lot but don't lock you in forever. And realize having limitations is sometimes a benefit. It means you can't overcomplicate things on your own and will have to work with what you've got. You don't want to spend time maintaining multiple systems when you should be focused on building your brand and getting more sales.

You should only allow complexity when you know exactly how it will benefit you.

So, at a minimum, to build out a lean eCommerce tech stack, you're going to need:

• An eCommerce platform

• Website analytics

• Accounting software

• Shipping platform

• Workspace tool

• Communication app

• Creative tools

• Automation

Now, I'm not saying this is all you need or that it's the absolute best eCommerce tech stack. I don't know if there is such a thing as you'll need to add or swap out more tools for your specific needs, but this is what has worked for me to get something off the ground.

Sell with Squarespace for eCommerce.

I like using Squarespace for my eCommerce platform instead of Shopify because it does everything I need to do without having to connect a bunch of third-party apps to make it all work.

Now, does doing this mean there are some things I can't do? Yes. But I'm more than happy to give up some customization for simplicity. Especially when some of the customizations are just nice to have and nothing that's business critical. By not having the option to do certain things, I don't have to think or worry about them.

And, it's not so much that I can't do something. It's more so I don't have complete control over how it's set up. I have to trust that the user experience Squarespace designed has been tested to be as efficient as possible.

So, things like being able to edit the styles of all the components but not being able to design a new component. Or not being able to customize the checkout flow. Or being able to edit the text and design of the automated emails but not being able to change when they're sent.

Small things like these where it's all there, but some of the decisions have been removed.

But, not having total control over the platform means I can spend more time creating content, marketing the brand, and ultimately getting more sales. The kinds of things that actually matter when launching a new brand.

I also think this tradeoff is worth it because Squarespace continually adds new features to the platform. I've seen it happen where another platform will launch a new feature I'd want, and not long after, Squarespace is rolling it out as well. Most recently, they did this with product reviews.

Because of these things, I think Squarespace is the simplest and most straightforward eCommerce platform that will do everything you need while making it so easy to create a well-designed experience. Whatever you want, you can create.

And, if you ever get to the point of outgrowing it, another off-the-shelf solution isn't your answer anyway. You'll likely need to build out a completely customized solution.

Alternative eCommerce platforms:

• Shopify

• BigCommerce

• Woo Commerce

• Wix

Track and view analytics with Google Analytics.

If you have a website, you need to have analytics tracking set up for the metrics that matter. Without it, you won't know what's working, what's not, or who your customers are and where they're from. 

For this, the industry standard is Google Analytics.

Now, I know there are newer, read "niche" analytics platforms that are a bit simpler and focus more on privacy. But, they're not as established, and you're going to have to pay for them. Whereas Google Analytics is free, and it's what most people will be familiar with.

And while it can be a bit complicated to understand all the reports at first, once you spend a bit of time with them, you'll know what's important and what you can ignore.

This is the real reason to start with Google Analytics.

One day you might need all of the data it captures. So, you'll be better off tracking it from the beginning instead of trying to infer things from what you think happened because you didn't realize something was important.

And it's incredibly easy to set up. Simply add your tracking code to your site, and you'll immediately start capturing analytics.

So, while this may sound like a lot, don't worry if it seems overkill right now. Getting familiar with GA4 will only help you as you'll have more insight into your business as it grows.

Alternative analytics platforms:

• Plausibile Analytics

• Simple Analytics

Shipping with Easyship.

Then, once you start selling your products, you'll need a way to manage all of your shipments.

And aside from being able to create and track all of your shipments in one place, you will be getting access to better shipping rates by using a shipping platform. This saves you money and is one of the ways brands can offer free shipping as it becomes a manageable marketing expense when they're not having to pay full price.

Just search "shipping platform," and you'll see there are a bunch of platforms to choose from. But they all do pretty much the same thing. 

My favorite is Easyship, as it felt like the most intuitive and well designed platform of the ones I looked at. And it was the cheapest option, which is always something to consider when starting out.

Alternative shipping platforms:

• Ship Station

• Shippo

• ShipBob

Keep track of your money with Xero.

You want to save money on taxes, right? If you do, and who doesn't, you'll need to keep track of all your expenses to write things off when your taxes are due. To do this, you'll want to track your expenses throughout the year, as it's way easier to do it consistently than to try and collect everything right before the deadline. 

Accounting software will make this incredibly easy as it connects to your bank account and syncs everything automatically. All you'll have to do is make sure things are tagged to the proper accounts and attach receipts.

The two most popular ones I know of are Quickbooks and Xero. I use Xero, but I have friends who use Quickbooks, and I don't think there's much difference. They both do the same thing and are standard in the accounting industry.

You must also keep your personal and business money in different accounts as it helps separate liability should anything happen.

Alternative accounting software:

• Quickbooks Online

• Wave Accounting

• Freshbooks

Google Workspace for Email & Cloud Storage.

I hope I don't have to convince you that Google Workspace, Google's suite of business tools, is what you need to use for your email and cloud storage.

I truly don't know why you'd used anything else.

It's email, docs, spreadsheets, drive, etc. Everything you know of from Google already if you use Gmail.

And, yes, you have to pay for it, but it's worth it when you get an email @yourdomain instead of @gmail. It's more professional and makes you look like you're taking your business seriously.

Alternative workspace tools:

• Microsoft 365

If you don’t want to use either of these then you could make your own “business suite” with a bunch of different apps but it all becomes more complicated when you do that.

Communicate with Slack.

If you're just starting out, it might seem like you don't need a chat app as you don't have any other team members to chat with. But that doesn't mean having something like Slack isn't valuable.

This is because when I'm not using Slack for chat, I use it as a business dashboard to collect all of my notifications in one place.

This way, instead of checking all of my apps individually, I set up Slack integrations, so I'm getting alerts for specific things in the channels I set up. For example, mentions on Twitter will show up in #marketing, and new sales will show up in #revenue.

Doing this means I get an overview of what's going on and don't have to spend time checking multiple apps to see if there's anything I need to address. If there is, it will show up in Slack.

Alternative communication tools:

• Discord

• Telegram

Create anything with Creative Cloud.

This is the one thing where I don't really have a recommendation as it seems like the preferred design tool changes fairly regularly, and it really depends on what you're trying to do and are comfortable with.

But that said, you can't go wrong with using Adobe Creative Cloud. It's been around forever and is the most well known across industries.

So, if you're doing straightforward DTC style creative, then the photography plan with Photoshop and Lightroom should be all you need. But if you need more tools, you'll be better off getting the entire Creative Cloud suite, as paying for individual apps doesn't make sense.

Again, the best tool will be the one that does what you need and are most comfortable with.

For me, I have the full Creative Suite as I often need to edit photos in Lightroom and Photoshop, edit videos in Premiere, and occasionally create logos in Illustrator. It's just easier for me to have tools that are a part of the same family and share a similar layout.

Alternative creative tools:

• Figma

• Canva

Connect every app with Zapier.

Lastly, most, if not all, of these tools will integrate with each other. But if they don't, Zapier will help you make those connections.

Zapier is a tool that links apps together and automates tasks, so you don't have to manually do a bunch of tedious work.

This may not sound like an essential tool, but it's one that will save you time and help you do more with less. So it's one to keep in mind for when you find yourself doing the same thing over and over again, Zapier may be able to help do it for you.

Alternative automation tools:

• Automate

• IFTTT

• Make

Focus on scalability.

Alright, this is the eCommerce tech stack I recommend you start with when launching your brand. But like I said, you might have different needs and could need more tools for whatever business you're in. The point is, you want whatever tools you choose to be scalable.

While you don't need to get the most advanced tools initially, you also don't want to get things you'll quickly outgrow. You want to get set up with straightforward tools that are simple to operate while still being able to grow with you.

The last thing you'll want to do is re-platform because you didn't think ahead.

That's why I use all of the tools I talk about above. They do everything I need them to do now, and I'm confident they'll continue working for me as my business grows.

Finally, I've learned that it's sometimes worth paying for tools that will make your life easier. 

For too long I tried to save a few dollars and do things manually. But doing that meant I spent a lot of my time doing things that didn't grow the business.

So, if you find yourself doing a bunch of busy work instead of things that can grow your business, know it may be worth paying $5 a month for a tool that will simplify things or do something for you.

Knowing when to quit your side project.

So, you’re working on a side project but aren’t sure whether it’s worth it to keep going or quit?

While all of the other advice says to quit when you’re not interested anymore, when it gets too hard, or when you’re tired and just don’t have the time.

I will give you an exact answer for when you need to decide to quit or keep going.

The problem with all the other advice is that it’s subjective and makes it ok to rationalize our time away because we’ve already done so much. We think maybe giving it one more try will make all the difference when, in fact, we’re unable to see things for what they are because we’re too close to them.

Now, I’m not advocating for you to quit. But just to understand, time is your most valuable resource, and I don’t want you wasting it on something that’s not going to give you what you want.

Side project vs. side hustle vs. hobby.

First, we have to define what a side project, a side hustle, and a hobby are.

A side project is something you do for money.

A side hustle is something you’re good at and enjoy and can make money with if you want.

And, a hobby is something you do purely for fun.

Now, obviously, there are nuances to each of these and they can sometimes blend together or transition from one to another. But for this, we need to know a side project is something we’re doing for money.

Even if it’s not a lot of money right away, the purpose of a side project is to one day make a significant amount of money from it, so you don’t have to do whatever it is you’re doing now. Whereas with a side hustle, you’re often able to make money immediately, but it’s not life changing money. It’s just more than what you’re making currently.

Really it’s about leverage, where a side project leverages your skills to make something that can compound and pay off with outsized returns. A side project is where you’re trading your time for money, and you can only make as much as you’re willing to work.

This is why we need to know when it’s the right time to quit a side project. Because while there’s delayed gratification, there’s also an opportunity cost that needs to be considered. Your time is valuable, and your time today is worth more than your time in the future because if we expect something to compound, then anything past right now is only delaying things further.

So, how do we know when it’s the right time to quit a side project?

Don’t spend more than 200 hours.

I don’t think you should spend more than 200 hours on a side project before deciding to quit. And, obviously, you could decide sooner if it’s clearly not working out.

Here’s why.

If we know we only have 200 hours to make something work, then we’ll prioritize the things that matter and have the most potential upside. This will save us from falling into the trap of being fake productive and working on things that keep us busy but don’t move anything forward.

200 hours is enough time to make a real effort and see if you can get any sort of traction, but it’s not enough to let you waste your time trying to force something to work. You either get enough interest to prove you should keep going. Or, you realize maybe no one else is as interested in your thing as you hoped they’d be, and it’s time to try something else. Either way, it’s better to know sooner than later.

How long 200 hours is really. 

To prove this, here’s what 200 hours looks like for real.

Let’s assume a side project is in addition to a full-time job and whatever else you have going on. By definition, it’s “on the side,” so we have to fit this in around everything else. And, we don’t want to burn out or neglect our other responsibilities, so we have to be reasonable with how much time we think we can dedicate to this each week.

We’ll start with five hours a week. One extra hour each work day, which leaves the weekends open or available to pick up any slack if needed.

200 hours / 5 hours a week would be 40 weeks.

That’s almost an entire year, which isn’t good or bad, but you can see how you really need to make sure what you’re working on is worth it. Otherwise, you’ll have lost an entire year.

Then, if you can do eight hours a week. With one hour each work day and a few on the weekend, you’re looking at 25 weeks or half a year.

If you can up it to 10 hours a week. One hour each work day and five more on the weekend, you’re looking at 20 weeks or five months.

Any more than this, and I think you have to make more sacrifices than a side project requires. Which is fine. It’s just different and more of a second job at that point. And, for what it’s worth, this is what we hope our side project turns into, but it’s unrealistic to commit so much time to it before you know it’s working.

What you can sustain.

So, looking at this, I think dedicating 8 hours a week to a side project is the most sustainable approach. 8 hours allows you to work on it a bit each day, or if you need to, you can effectively work all Saturday or split it across the weekend. It’s manageable while still being a serious commitment.

Which if you’re willing to do that, it means you believe in the project and want to succeed. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t make the time.

So, ultimately, this gives you six months to figure out if a side project is worth it or not.

Don’t worry about sunk costs.

Now, this doesn’t mean your side project will be wildly successful after six months. Probably not at all. But after consistently dedicating 200 hours to a project, you should begin to see things that prove you’re on the right track.

Things like a prototype or MVP that real people have tested for you, a waitlist or people asking when your product will be available, or you’re continuing to see the market trend in the direction you’re heading.

Simple things, but things that take a fair about of hard work to accomplish.

This makes it easy to say that if you’re not seeing any of these things happening by this point, it’s likely time to move on.

Now, this could mean realizing the idea wasn’t as good as you thought it would be and shutting it down entirely. Or, you need to pivot and build something more in line with what people say they need.

Quitting doesn’t have to be completely yes or no. But you don’t want to be the one chasing an idea that’s not going anywhere just because you’ve been doing it for so long.

There are better opportunities out there.

The one reason why my startup could fail.

Want to know the one reason why my startup, Liip, could fail?

It’s me.

I’m the reason my startup could fail.

You probably didn’t think it would be that simple, but it is. One day I could decide to just stop.

Now, of course, I’m not planning on doing that, but a number of things could cause it to happen.

So instead of ignoring the possibility of one day giving up, here are all the reasons I can think of that would make quitting a reality. Others have called this the practice of Inversion or setting Anti-Goals. Thinking about the things you don’t want to happen, so you don’t end up there.

It’s about proactively thinking through what I can do to keep it going instead of being reactive and accepting whatever happens.

I’ve made this mistake many times before where I’ve started something, and then after a while, I’m no longer working on it and on to something else. A few of those projects were:

• Ski wax company

• Lifestyle magazine

• Athleisure brand

• Freelancer job board

• Approval tracking SaaS app

And that’s not to say these were all good ideas, or I was equally excited about all of them. Most startups don’t pan out, so it was more than likely they wouldn’t either. But I could have been better about making more of an effort as some of them came to an end because I just stopped working on them.

So here are the things I can think of that would be why my current brand could fail and what I can do to prevent that from happening.

I get bored.

I need to think bigger. Or, at least, big enough. I’ve heard others say, and now I have enough experience to know, that you’ll spend as much time on a small thing as a big thing. So it’s better to pick the bigger thing with more potential upside. If not, I might find I put in a ton of time for what amounts to pretty much nothing. Now, of course, a bigger idea may be harder to get off the ground, and I end up with zero anyway. But I will have at least given myself the chance of a worthwhile outcome.

I think what’s happened to me is I’ve worked on opportunities I felt were safe. And by safe, I mean small enough that I wouldn’t really care if they failed. I wouldn’t have to suffer any consequences. But, because I never took any risk with them, I also never gave myself the chance of real success. I was always somewhere in the middle, and nothing remarkable happens in the middle. The middle is just like everything else.

When I’m working on things that I know don’t truly matter, I get bored and start looking for the next thing.

I start chasing the next thing.

The real reason most of my business ideas have failed is that I don’t let them get far enough along to find out if they were any good or not.

Instead, I do everything to get a business ready to launch, but then I don’t do anything with it. I’m already onto the next thing. Something I find more exciting or think is a better idea.

The problem, I’ve realized, is this is a strategy I use to protect myself from having to find out if my ideas are actually any good or not. By moving on, I don’t have to find out if people want and will pay for whatever I’m selling. Instead, I get the satisfaction of knowing I can build something without risking the possibility of it not being the success I think it could be.

The trouble, though, is by not launching these projects, I’ll never know if they could be successful or not because, effectively, none of them are. I don’t allow myself to find out.

So, instead of chasing the next thing, I need to make sure the idea is big enough to keep things exciting and commit to at least launching projects, so I get real feedback.

I burn out.

What usually happens, though, is I don’t consciously decide I’ll stop working on one project and move on to the next one. No. What usually happens is I’ll just add another thing to everything else I’m already doing.

Which, obviously, I know doesn’t work, and I’d tell anyone else trying to do too much that they have to pick one or two things to focus on, and that’s it.

For whatever reason, though, I think I’m different, and this advice doesn’t apply to me.

So, what really happens is I’ll have all of these things I’m “working” on but not getting anything done. I end up being fake productive and working on things that don’t move the projects forward, and eventually, I burn out. I feel like I’m putting in all this effort but not seeing any progress. Then, once that hits, I have a hard time staying motivated, and I stop working as hard because my work doesn’t produce any results.

I have to realize, though, that it’s not that I’m not putting in enough effort. It’s that the effort is spread across too many things. I’m able to give them enough attention to stay alive but not enough to thrive. And instead of asking for help, I try and double down and do more by myself. Which is usually fine for a bit, but I only have so much time available, and it’s only a matter of time until I can’t sustain the pace I’ve gotten to.

I try to do everything myself.

If I’m truly being honest with myself about why my projects fail, it’s that I think I have to do everything myself.

And what I really need to do is learn how to delegate. To let go and be ok with someone else doing something 80% as good as I think I can. And you know what, there are going to be many things other people can do 100% better than I can if I just ask for help and let them do it.

I’m getting there, and I’m starting to see the value in having other people around with different skill sets that free me up to work on the things I’m good at and let them do what they’re good at. But it’s hard. It’s hard to give up control when I’m so used to doing things my way.

I think I’ve been so adamant about doing things myself because I want to know how everything works.

If I know how it works, even if I’m not the best at it, I can at least understand whatever needs to be done. This way, I can talk from a place of experience with whoever is doing it instead of having to guess or leave it entirely up to them. So, it’s good and bad, but without recognizing this is how I think, I make it easy to fall into the trap of getting tired and chasing the next thing when I run into something I don’t know how to do.

Simple, but not always easy.

Really, while there are many reasons why my startup could fail, it all comes down to one. And that’s me. It’s entirely up to me whether I’ll keep working on something or not. And the way to make sure I can see things through is to only work on ideas worth pursuing, not be distracted by new ideas, focus on one thing at a time, and ask for help before I need it.

It’s simple, but it’s not always easy.

Want to know how I got out of my own way and finally figured out how to see things through? I detail everything in my 5-Day Brand Bootcamp.

Brand Bootcamp

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The Brand Bootcamp is a 5-day, self-paced email course guiding you step-by-step through validating an idea, designing your brand, and getting your first sales.

Full of tools, tactics, templates, and strategies, you’ll learn what’s worth worrying about now, what you can figure out later, and how to effortlessly make decisions as you continue building your brand.

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Three launch offers that don’t devalue your brand.

Discounting prices will always be a way to increase sales of your product.

But, it's not always the best thing to do, especially at launch.

By discounting your product, you're effectively telling people it's not worth the price you say it is. Which, obviously, is not what you want people to think. Instead, we want people to feel like they're the ones who got more out of the transaction.

And, lucky for us, there are other ways we can make people feel like they're getting something extra without making it seem like you're overpriced or aren't sure about your product's value.

The three offers I like to use to do this are Free Plus Shipping, Bundles, and Free Shipping Thresholds.

Free plus shipping.

With Free Plus Shipping, you give away your product for Free while having people pay for shipping.

This works when your cost of goods sold is pretty low where you're breaking even or close to one side of it. If you're net positive, great. And if you're a bit negative, write it off as a marketing expense.

Now, because you're likely only breaking even, I don't recommend doing this all the time, but it's a great tactic when you're launching a new product and want to get it in people's hands.

By doing this, people feel like they're getting your product for free even though they have to pay for something. And, because it doesn't read like a percentage off your regular price, it's not positioned as a discount that would devalue the product. Instead, people feel like they're paying for access to a deal they'll never see again.

Product bundles.

Another way to increase perceived value is with a bundle.

You can do something like a Buy-One-Get-One offer if you have one product. Or, if you have multiple products, you could naturally group those together. With this, you're still discounting by giving away an item for free, but it doesn't feel that way to a buyer. Instead, it feels like they're getting a gift.

And, for you, bundles get more of your products into people's hands. This can help with awareness and possible repeat purchases, as people can "try before they buy."

Free shipping threshold.

Lastly, you can implement a Free Shipping Threshold where people unlock free shipping after reaching a set dollar amount.

This is less enticing for new customers as it means they have to spend more to get this offer, but most people will take advantage of it as they would rather pay to get something than pay for shipping. This is a great way to gamify the customer experience as it will increase your Average Order Value (AOV).

Also, a Free Shipping Threshold is an evergreen offer you should keep forever as no one likes paying for shipping.

Controlling perception.

Remember, the success of your brand is all about perception and what people think of it.

You don't want to become known as a discount brand as people will learn not to value your product the way you do. They'll realize you're always offering some sort of discount and won't ever pay full price. They'll just wait for the next deal.

So controlling how people think about your brand and any available offers come down to a mix of psychology and business strategy. You're not trying to trick anyone, but you need to balance what people value with what will make a difference for your business.

Even if it's clear you're doing something to make more revenue, as long as there's also a clear benefit for the person buying your product, there shouldn't be any trouble. 

You want to use offers strategically so you don't end up relying on them.

Simple DTC brand launch checklist.

Launch day is the most exciting day of starting a new brand.

It's when you go from talking about your idea to, hopefully, making money.

It's exciting because getting your first dollar is what actually validates if your idea is any good. Until then, it's all talk. This transition to reality is why launch day feels so important. You think everything needs to be absolutely perfect because if not, the brand will fail—you will have failed.

Because we put so much pressure on ourselves to make sure it's perfect, we often overcomplicate what we're trying to do. We stress over irrelevant details and worry about how we have to do everything as we try to emulate other established brands.

So, without anything relevant to reference, we try to do as much as possible—just in case. We think the more we do, the better. When, in fact, the opposite is often a better approach. Instead of trying to do everything, the best thing we can do when launching a brand is to focus on doing only a few things—the things we're good at—exceptionally well.

Everything else can come later.

So, that's what this DTC brand launch checklist is for—to help you simplify your launch plan so you can focus on what's important.

The point isn't to think about what you could do but what you need to do.

When we launched Liip, I thought we had planned for everything. But at the time, we didn't know what we didn't know. And while we did a lot, there were a number of things we should have done but didn't think about until after the fact.

So, this checklist is the things we did that I'd do again. And the things I wish we would have done.

It'll help you focus on what's essential while making sure you think through everything else so there aren't any surprises on launch day. You'll have either planned for or at least thought about whatever might come up across these five elements of a successful brand launch:

1. Pre-launch product-market fit.

2. Setting up your eCommerce engine.

3. Minimum viable media library

4. Launch day content strategy

5. Standardized order fulfillment

Ready?

Let's go.

1. Pre-launch product-market fit.

Finding product-market fit is the hardest thing to do on this checklist, but it's also the most important part of launching a brand.

By the time you're ready to launch, your product needs to have found product-market fit. So, while there may be things you'll want, or rather, have to change, you need to be confident people will buy what you're selling.

To make sure this is the case, launch day cannot be the first time they hear about your product.

It's just the first day everyone can buy it.

To find product-market fit, you need to have a group of people use your product and give you honest feedback as you develop it. You want to know what they like, what they don't, and what, if anything, they'd do differently. You especially want to pay attention to how they talk about your product so you can speak like them in your marketing. It's funny how the benefits you think are most important might not be why others like your product. 

You also need to make sure the product isn't just something they like but something they'll pay for. Many people will say they like a product but never buy it when it's available. This is especially true of your friends and family.

I always like to remind myself that my friends aren't my customers.

But, while there's no definitive way to say for sure whether you have product-market fit or not, if you can check these things off, you likely do:

• You know who is and who isn't your ideal customer

• You know what your audience values and how your product fits into their lives

• You know how they talk about your product

• You have a point of view and a way to position your product that's different from your competitors

• You have people asking for your product before it's on sale, or they've signed up for a waitlist

• You have positive pre-launch reviews from your early adopters

Pre-launch product-market fit can be a bit hard to define other than "you know it when you have it." So look for signals of demand and momentum as those will be the best indicators of whether you're heading in the right direction.

Before you keep going, though, know the rest of this doesn't matter if you don't have a product people want. So, make sure you figure this out first.

2. Setting up your eCommerce engine.

Your site is the center of your business and will connect everything you do.

However, when you start, there's only one thing you need to optimize for—getting sales. This is why we're not going to create a bunch of pages right now and only worry about the ones that move people to buy. We want to create as little friction as possible between someone visiting the site and checking out.

To do that, you only need 3-5 pages.

• A Home page which I think should be your shop page as all we want people to do is buy our products

• A product detail page, or pages, to explain the product benefits and why someone should buy them

• An about page to tell our story as no one knows anything about you or why you exist; bonus points if you have a photo or video of yourself or the team

• An FAQ page will increase your credibility by subtly telling people that others are interested in your product

• Miscellaneous Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, Shipping & Return Policy pages are also good to have as they make you look more legitimate, and some platforms require them anyway

Then, you want to optimize these pages for basic SEO with unique page names, keywords, meta descriptions, clean URLs, etc. SEO is a long game, so you likely won't see it bringing in substantial traffic initially. But, tightening these things up helps create a better user experience for those visiting your site and lays the foundation for more traffic in the future.

So, since we can't rely on SEO right now, the site then needs to do these other things to capture user info and allow us to start building relationships.

• Have a newsletter sign up in the footer, so it's on every page, and include it in the checkout flow

• Set up an automated welcome email or series and make it as personal as possible

• Allow people to create accounts so they can save their info for future purchases

• Link to your social channels to give people a place to connect with you as the site won't have much to interact with

• Add Google Analytics so you can track your most important metrics

• Add a Meta pixel so you can run retargeting ads and track conversions

• Add a Google AdWords pixel for remarketing and tracking conversions

Even if you don't have plans to use some of these things yet, you need to take advantage of the traffic spike you'll see on launch day. Because if you don't set up ways to reconnect with people, they may come once and never again.

3. Minimum viable media library.

The easiest thing to overlook during a brand launch is the media assets.

It's not that you won't think about them. It's that you will try to get away with doing what you think is just enough.

A content library, though, is one of the areas where you actually can't have too much. The more, the better. You don't know what opportunities might come up that you'll need an asset for. So, even if you think you're investing too much time or money into creating assets now, you should know you're not wasting resources. You can use them later for something else.

To know what assets you'll need, you need to plan ahead for the three types of media: Earned, Owned, and Paid.

Earned media.

Earned media are the things people say or post about you that you haven't paid for or created yourself.

• Press

• Interviews

• Influencers

• User-Generated Content (UGC)

Owned media.

Owned media are the things you do on the channels you control.

• Company blog

• Email list

• Social media channels

Paid media.

Paid media is when you pay for placements or boost your posts.

• Influencers

• Social

• Search

• Native

• Outdoor

• Display

While there's a lot to think about, the best part is how you can use assets across media types. So it's really not as much as it sounds like. You just don't want to republish something without optimizing it for each platform—this isn't 2012 Facebook and Twitter anymore.

And while there are so many different media placements, you don't have to do them all at the start. Instead, you need to pick the channels that make sense for your brand, your audiences, and what you can manage.

To do that, a minimum viable media library would look something like this:

• 3-5 Hero and product detail photos

• 5-10 Lifestyle photos that feature the product

• 5-10 Lifestyle photos without product if it makes sense and you can get them

• 5-10 UGC, or what looks like UGC photos or video

• 3-5 Vertical videos for stories

This gets you about 20 different assets at a minimum, which should be enough to build out the channels you plan to start with and a couple extra for whatever comes up.

But remember, this is the minimum for launch day. You still need to think about what assets you'll need for days post-launch as you're going to want to build momentum with the people who are now hopefully following you.

For that, I would double down on some lifestyle and UGC type assets as they'll be the most versatile.

4. Launch day content strategy.

With your new asset library, you will want to start posting content on all of your channels ahead of your launch day. Even if you don't plan on using a platform, you don't want people showing up and there not being anything. So, publish 6-12 posts on each page, so they're not empty, and then use the bio to direct people to where you'll be more active.

And if you haven't gotten all of your social handles, do it now. Seriously, you don't want to find out the handle you want was available, but you waited too long, and now someone else has it. The same goes for any new platform that pops up. Just get it. You never know what's going to be popular.

Then, once your platforms are set up, here's what you need to think about as you plan your launch strategy.

• Decide what your compelling launch offer will be

• Develop and schedule your pre-planned content calendar

• Define an audience for paid media and retargeting

• Plan for what organic posts you'll put money behind

• Set up a retargeting campaign

Something we didn't plan for when we launched Liip was having assets we could give people to post about it on their feeds. We didn't even think about it until people started asking us how they could share our product and links.

What we should have done was have a few assets and pre-written copy we could send people, so it was plug-and-play for them.

It wasn't the worst that we didn't have this, but it was an easy thing we could have done that would have probably made a difference.

5. Standardized order fulfillment.

Having more orders to fulfill than you anticipated is a good problem to have. But know, whether it's your first time launching a product or not, it's going to take way longer to get things packaged and shipped than you think it will. That's why we try to automate or plan ahead for all the other things because fulfillment will take priority once orders start coming in.

Now, of course, you want to get orders out as quickly as possible, so the product gets to your new customers as soon as possible. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't set expectations for how orders will be shipped, when they'll go out, and when people can expect them to be delivered.

Most customer complaints happen because something wasn't communicated. So being upfront about this stuff goes a long way. And, as a new brand, most people understand if things take a bit longer if you tell them why.

So, here's what you want to do to keep this manageable:

• Pick one carrier—this way, you don't have to manage shipments going to different drop-off locations

• Offer one standard shipping option to keep things simple—this will also help limit your costs if you're offering Free Shipping

• Have at least two shipping boxes, mailers, envelopes, etc—one for small orders and one for big orders

• Set a cut-off time for order fulfillment—for example, orders before 2pm ship the same day, and orders after 2pm will ship the next

• Find out when the final pickup time is at your carrier location and be there well beforehand—otherwise, your packages will sit there until the next day

Also, get some extra help if you can.

Having another set of hands to do anything will make such a difference when you're focused on getting orders out. Either you'll be able to get more orders packed and shipped together. Or, you can free up some of your time to focus on other launch related things like responding to questions or continuing to promote the product.

Whatever happens, it will be better if you don't have to do it all yourself.

Launch is just the start.

So, will your launch day be perfect?

No. It won't be. Nothing ever is.

But this simple checklist will help you think through the critical things that will give you the best chance of success.

And, just because something is here doesn't mean you have to do it. Instead, you should use this checklist as a guideline to decide what's right for you.

Like I said, this is built from things we did that I'd do again and the things I wish we should have done.

The point is to do everything you can to be prepared but not overextend yourself to where you're not doing anything well.

Focus on the few things that will make a difference now and figure out the rest later.

Really, preparing to launch a new DTC brand comes down to two things. First, automate everything you can. And second, only worry about what you can control and be ok with whatever else happens.

No matter what, your launch day is going to feel incredibly important. And it is. But remember, it's just one day in what you hope to be a long journey.

So, you have to be ready to adapt, willing to change, and want to learn, as launching your brand is the only way you will get to the next step—proving it is good enough to become a real business.