How to stay motivated while starting a business

One of the hardest thing about trying to start this business is keeping the level of a motivation up. Like many have experienced before me, there are many highs and many lows. The longer the start up process, the harder it seems to remember why you started the project. The little step back often seems like huge failures. When in reality, these road blocks are often the challenges that help you create a better or service for your customer.

I have been going through the motions recently. I get really excited when I make some progress but really scared and stressed when I think of everything that still stands before me. I’ve gotten better at getting rid of that feeling so I thought I’d share with you guys the things that have helped me stay focused and motivated. The first three may seem like clichés but they really do help (most clichés are true).

1. Exercising. This has been really consistent throughout the last 9 months. Every time I feel stressed or unfocused I just get up and go for a one. Not only do I feel better (thanks endorphins) but I usually come up with some of my best ideas while I’m jogging.
2. Sleep. I believe in a goods night sleep. Motivation and energy levels are highly correlated. When I’m tired I’m only motivated to slouch around or sleep
3. Food. I’ve really been getting into eating a better. Someone (Kelly Slater I think) said: “What you eat is like the gas you put in your car. If you put in shitty gas, you get shitty performance.” That’s when I finally understood. I have been eating a lot a protein to carry me through the morning. I eat a smaller lunch than before to try to avoid a food coma and then I try to snack on almonds or raisins. I use to have really low energy levels in the afternoon and now it’s much better.
4. Reddit. I’m subscribed to the /GetMotivated subreddit. A daily doses of inspiration never hurts.
5. Reading. I try to read business related books or articles for 20 to 30 minutes every morning. I love reading so I really enjoy this part but reading is also well documented for having many positive benefits on the brain. It acts as a great stimulant and you can usually find some useful bits of information. My three favorite books in the last year have been The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun (founder of TOMs), Let my People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia) and the 100$ Startup by Chris Guillebeau. The two first ones offer inspirational stories on people who choose to start something more than your typical business. The last book offers a simple blueprint on what you should focus on when launching a (smaller) business.
6. Podcasts. I commute a lot and I recently discovered how awesome podcasts are. I know there are a ton of great ones but I really enjoy The Tim Ferris Show, The James Altucher Show and Startup (by Gimlet Media). I love the fact that they’re not preachy. You just get honest discussions and success and failure stories. You’re not treated like a bunch of school children (like Entrepreneur on Fire).
7. Do one thing. I try to force myself to take one step forward, no matter how small. It can be just one email, one blog post or one phone call. It keeps me from losing momentum and you do get a small sense of accomplishment out of it.

That’s all! I put off this writing this post for a while because I was scared it would look like a Business Insider click bait article. The truth is that motivation fluctuation is a real thing. I can’t guarantee that these solutions work for you but they do work for me. I invite you to try them for yourself and wish you luck on your endeavours.

I’ll leave you with one more quote from /r/GetMotivated because everyone loves Peter Dinklage

Via /GetMotivaed subreddit

The search for charities (A quick update)

In all honesty, I have done very little in my life in regards to NPOs and charities. The starting of Andy+ is the going to be my first major step in a little selflessness and trying to become a better person. Everything counts right?

This leaves me with little experience on charities, how they work and even where I can find them. A small challenge if I intend to find one to partner with. The non profits I knew are pretty well known: Chairty:Water, One Drop and Pencils of Promise. All three of these organizations could help Andy+ of achieving its goal of giving back. Even better, they target goals that we value specifically: education, children and the accessibility to clean water. I just wonder, with organizations that are already pretty big, will our contribution help them considerably? Will our humble contributions fall between the cracks of the 25 000$ checks the receive? (This assumption is based on the size of the organization, the stories I’ve read on their blogs, The book The Promise of a Pencil, their founders, etc). Our contributions will obviously help them at least a little bit because everything counts. I’m just wondering if I am better of giving to a smaller organization where each contribution will help them more because they have less money.

I did a little searching for new organizations and stumbled upon two new ones that I really liked: Rainforest Alliance and Cup for Education. I really liked the Adopt-a-Rainforest model from Rainforest Alliance. Imagine if the whole Andy+ community could help save a whole forest. How cool would that be? (Very cool). Rainforest Alliance is also a very big organization. (in this case I am using Facebook Likes as a metric for size. They have over 200 000 likes) . Cup for Eduction on the other hand is tiny. Under a 1000 likes. Their mission is to help educate children in the rural areas of the world. More specifically, these are the areas where coffee farming is done. I love the connection between helping the less fortunate people who make the coffee we love and providing a product that helps serve coffee. It feels right. Furthermore, the organization looks really small. I’m convinced that Andy+ could help them but I am also convinced that I could also help them personally (specifically with their online presence).

Finally, out of all these organizations, I ended contacting Cup for Education. After a week, I still do not have a response. Today I found a second e-mail to reach to same person a Cup for Education. I’ve resent an e-mail this morning. I will see if I get a response this time.

I am leaning towards helping Cup for Education because what we sell and what they do is complementary. In other words I am helping those who help us (by producing coffee). I still have the following questions, uncertainties and reflexions about this non final choice:

• Big versus small. Is the smaller company really going to help our society more than the bigger, more organized NPO? Can we help them grow into a big organization?
• The cup for education logo is far from modern and will not necessary look good printed on our product. Although looks aren’t everything, they definitely help a lot.
• If I partner with a bigger organization, they can help me promote Andy+ to an audience that is very similar to the one we are targeting. The bigger we get, the more we can give back.

I’ll leave you with this video which is totally relevant:

Live the search

Memorize and follow this never-fail recipe: get started, don’t quit. – Barbara Winter

The first samples we ordered weren’t up to the standards we our looking for as a company. The second sample we ordered was much, much worst. I then went on to spend way too much searching for products on Alibaba and Global sources. I couldn’t find any products that I could image starting a brand with. I was literally checking twice a week for new products.

This kept leading back to the big dilemma. Should I be designing a producing the bottle? This question just kept coming back every time I was doing online searches. Producing the bottle would allow to create a product that I was really proud in. It would also necessitate much more money upfront. My only option to bootstrap designing a bottle was to go to kickstarter or another crowdfunding platform. The cool part about crowdfunding is that I acquire my customers before any sort of manufacturing. The down side is that I lose part of the company to that platform. Also, I am uncertain that my business model of giving back a percentage of every sale to an organisation is a good fit with crowdfunding. Every bottle sold has to give back. I don’t see myself asking for money that I’m not going to use to create my product on a crowdfunding website. Creating our own bottle feels like a lot of money is being spent at the wrong place. We are not a manufacturing company. We did not set out to revolutionized the travel mug design. We set out to revolutionize the way of doing business. We want to offer a business identity that customers are proud of being part of.

I talked about this product-problem a lot and got different feedback. Someone told me that the product doesn’t matter as long as the customers support the cause that our company supports. “You can sell canned shit. If they believe in your cause they will support you.” This puts the emphasis on what we believe to be the most important part of organization: the message and the cause we support. I understand the thinking behind this statement but I don’t believe people enjoy buying crap (figuratively). Furthermore if I hope to scale my business buy gaining loyal customers that repeatedly purchase goods from us. Finally, selling a sub par product does not fit with our 4 Golden Rules. If the product is cheap, it doesn’t reduce waste as much as it should because it will be replaced quickly.

So I continued my search for bottles online. I promised myself not to give up. There are already thousands upon thousands of existing designs. There has to be one for me! I did, however, change my searching methods. Someone told me I should stopped looking overseas and maybe try to find an organization that is closer to home. Such simple advice and I had not even thought about doing this. I searched for “Top Travel Mugs” on Google, I searched for “Travel Mugs” on Amazon and I started finding companies that were much more interesting. I cannot believe I didn’t think of searching Amazon and eBay before. I also found a coffee trade show in Vancouver. Although I have no intention of attending, I was able to look through the whole list of exhibitors and I found a lot of great companies and great NPOs (more on that soon).  Will the bottles be harder to buy from established wholesalers? Maybe. Will they be more expensive? Probably. However, they will answered our defined criteria.

I’ve sent out around 7-8 different e-mail explaining our business model and asking for the permission to buy and rebrand the products. Some answered. Some didn’t. I had to call some of the companies. Sometimes I was redirected to the Canadian wholesaler. Some Canadian wholesalers redirected me to the company. I did talked to must of the people I needed to. I promised myself that I would push beyond the first “No” any company would give me. In the end, two different organization agreed (on different terms) to sell and let me rebrand and sell their (quality) travel mugs. One of those organisation was the one bottle I really really want.

I do not having pricing with these organizations yet and I cannot confirm that I will work with either of them (although I really hope so and we are on track to do so). If i don’t, the search goes on.

The point of this big rambling is to express the learnings I have grasped in the last two months. I hope I didn’t bore you too much.

• Figure out what your company stands for (in my case, I am not a design or manufacturing company)
• Don’t give up even if you some times feel you are at a dead end. Everything can be worked out. Someone once told that an a business doesn’t die when it runs out of money. It dies when the founder gives up.
• Some times you have to change tactics. I lost a whole month and a half searching in the wrong places
• Don’t be afraid to talk to other people about your ideas. You may find advice. (Don’t bore them either. I always make sure these conversations go both ways).

Slow Roast

Not having an officiel deadline has not helped my productivity. This is why I’ve set up multiple dates and a system to make sure this product moves forward. First, I’ve decided to launch the product on march 23, 2015. Having an official goal really helps me get motivated to put aside some time each week for the project. I think this follow’s Parkinson’s Law, which states that: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” By not having a deadline, I think that I was growing the project beyond the scope of what it actually should be. With a deadline, I can refocus on the few elements that actually help me move forward.

Second, I’ve promised myself to review one prototype product before the end of october. This implies finding, buying and reviewing a physical product.

The last thing I did was convince my EBusiness strategy teacher to let me use my “startup” as an officiel projet for his class. At first, he said no. It took about 3-4 emails of explaining how the project would be more beneficial for my learning and would also be relevant to his class. In the end he accepted. This just proves that we shouldn’t stop at the first no (especially with the small stuff). This is a small “system” that forces to me forward, regardless of my other obligations.

Small elements of organisation. But I feel they’re helping me move forward.