Welcome to my first business blog! A couple of years ago I was honored, terrified, and a little embarrassed to be asked to give a FuckUp Night talk about my greatest business failure. FuckUp Nights is a global group dedicated to embracing failure, if you haven’t been to a FuckUp Night you should really go! The idea is that most new entrepreneurs have survivor bias, and get depressed when they aren’t the next Zuckerberg. They don’t realize that most businesses are small, and steady, and slow, and learn from their failures, and that nobody even hears about them until they become a ten year overnight success. FuckUp Nights let aspiring entrepreneurs see failure as part of the learning process!
Ehh? Just give it a go!
“Perhaps my true purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others?”
Preparing and delivering a FuckUp Night talk with my business partner inspired me greatly, and I started to share even more of my personal failures to anyone that would listen over a Happy Hour… Perhaps my true purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others? I’ve decided to try and turn my 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur into a book about business, but then I asked myself what do I even know about business? Or writing a book for that matter. I socialized the idea with friends over the last few years, and at a hotel bar in Washington DC, Everhardus van den Heuvel (Van), shrugged his shoulders and said: “Ehh? Just give it a go!”
I figured the best way to test my skills, develop content, and eat humble pie when my community calls me out on my drivel is to blog-write, with a hope to edit it with your feedback into a book one day. I’m going to try and come at this with my own brand of humor and humility, because if you don’t have a sense of humor and humility, you’re going to go through a few lonely and trying periods in your entrepreneurial career. To that end I’ve decided the most fitting title for this book is: Ehh? Please enjoy, and remember, this is a learning experience for both of us. Feel free to challenge, or elaborate, or share funny antidotes of failure and perseverance from your own foolhardy decision to start a company!
Prologue
Ehh? is a book about business, written for anyone that’s about to start a business, or is in the early days of a new venture, written by people who have also jumped off a building and assembled an aircraft on their way down. It’s about celebrating every window as you fall, because there might not be a big party when you hit the ground. Ehh? is a book about how you move through the stages of unbridled naivety in year one to dogged resilience for the next nine years on your way to financial ruin or ten year overnight success. It’s not a book about investing, fund raising, or growing an established company, there are lots of books about that, some great ones that helped along the way I’ll reference now and then.
Ehh?
“No one has ever started your business, in your time, in your market conditions, with your skill set, and your vision – No one.”
Let’s talk about the title: “Ehh?” is that sound you make when you aren’t exactly sure what you are doing, but you shrug your shoulders and say “fuck it, lets give it a go.” Ehh? shouldn’t be confused with “Meh”, meh is a dismissal, an indifference uttered by someone that simply does not care. Ehh? is said when you simply do not know what’s going to happen. And that’s the key: No one has ever started your business, in your time, in your market conditions, with your skill set, and your vision – No one. There are books about best practice, there are books about successful ventures and what the founders did, there are theories, and there are urban legends. You need to take all the advice you can get, but you must also realize no one else has actually experienced exactly what you are currently going through. Ehh? is a celebration of how lost you are, how naïve, and how brave. We are going to talk about failures and red flags, cautionary tales that hopefully will steer you away from the same mistake, but to be clear you’ll find new fuckups of your own along the way, and that’s ok: that’s business. Is this thing going to work? “Ehh?” Will anyone read this blog? “Ehh?”
Want to Read More?
Up Next! Chapter One – Unbridled Naivety rolls out in multiple blogs and explores the pivotal and adrenaline charged first year that covers ideation to the sinking realization that this might be a little tougher than it looks.
If you make it through the startup phase to product market fit, check out my Business Growth Consulting practice.
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About Me
Hi, I’m a founder-CEO with 20 years of experience growing companies, building relationships, imagining the future, and creating new things. I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2002 when I founded my first company, creating visual effects for Hollywood TV shows, where I won an Emmy for ‘Lost’ and received four nominations.
In 2010, I founded an aerospace and defense technology startup and led the company through unbridled naivety, survival, bootstrap, dogged resilience, and scaling. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to sit on numerous boards and round tables comprising diverse companies, communities, people, and points of view. I’ve successfully sold to Hollywood giants like SyFy, Fox, ABC, and Disney, to aerospace leaders such as Boeing, Lockheed, and Babcock, as well as the Canadian government, securing multi-year multi-million dollar contracts.
Now, my mission is to help fellow founder-CEOs by bringing proven strategies and customizable playbooks into their businesses. I coach them on building a solid team and executing their plans while focusing on what they love to do, ensuring their business thrives. My coaching expertise lies in strategy, business development, B2B & B2G, marketing, sales, and creative problem-solving. I’m here to help you get your business working for you, not the other way around!
Awards
1 Emmy, 4 Nominations, News Maker of the Year, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Team of the Year, Tech Company of the Year, Top 5 Moments in Television History (Lost – Pilot), 4 Time Top 75 Defence Company
Achievements
TEDx Talk, FuckUp Night Talk, Host of Western Innovation Forum, Trade Show Panelist, and Speaker.
Boards
Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology & Entrepreneurship Council (VIATEC) Western Canadian Defence Industry Association (WCDIA), The Alternative Board (TAB), Vancouver Island Aviation Association (VIAA)
Hobbies
Painting, Running, Sailing, Hiking, Camping, Traveling, Reading, Cooking.
Great Books
Scaling Up, Unfuck Yourself, Good to Great, Everything is Fucked, The Untethered Soul. How to Sell an Elephant