Public Commitment 2016 – Q1 Recap
Welcome back to an overview of my goals. Today I will look back at the first 3 months of 2016. Tomorrow I will present my goals for Q2 of 2016.
For the first quarter of 2016 I made the following goals. If you click on each goal you can read about my experiences. First, here are some general things I learned this quarter.
- Not everything goes according to plan, be accepting of your environment (try only to change what you can effectively change)
- Being accountable for a big goal can be very motivating (i.e. keep up running training when you have a marathon coming up)
- You laugh the most when you’re around other people, so be there or be square
I start LifePlanning & StudySuccess
When your company is only two (enthusiastic) entrepreneurs, things go fast. When we (Onno and I) started Queal, we were up and running in no more than 2 weeks. When working with more people, things tend to take longer.
With StudySuccess we’ve been stuck in the cogs of the university bureaucracy for months now. We really believe the intervention can help millions of students achieve more study success. Without an agreement with the university, however, we can’t go forward. Over the last months, we did make a website which will be able to go live soon. If we can start helping students next September, that’s still a question.
For LifePlanning we’ve laid the groundwork and are ready to get started. This Thursday we’re going to incorporate and then we will move into second gear. Everything looks great and if we can get the right offer-customer fit we will be rocking.
Important to note is that both projects haven’t made any money yet and therefore it’s still investing (with time). On a longer timescale (e.g. in 3 years) it will be good to see what the return on investment is.
I build Jerky to 10k revenue
Nope. This definitively didn’t happen. And there are two related reasons for this.
- We couldn’t get AdWords and other advertising places to work. This is something that with more expertise might still work.
- I’m flexitarian (i.e. don’t buy any meat, eat very little meat) and selling a meat product is somewhat hypocritical.
Still, I know that we can use our skills from Queal to make Jerky Empire/Outdoors work. What we need to make happen is 1) to get cracking on the online presence, 2) find out more about the lives of the cows where we get the jerky from (I know that they eat grass outdoors in Switzerland, but is this 1 day a year or always?)
I am under 90kg
Two more kg to go. I’ve lost 2kg and now hover around 92kg.
Between the marathon and the long-distance obstacle run, I will go to the gym a lot. Next to that, I will keep up my running (but of course a little less intense) and together with good food,d I believe I can make this 90kg thing happen. And maybe even less (or more muscles, because 90kg is only a proxy for ~14% body fat).
I run 24KM (Jan), I run 29KM (Feb), I run 32KM (Mar)
Hell yeah!
It hasn’t been easy (and it’s not supposed to be easy). But I’ve done my runs and are now prepared for the marathon.
Two weeks ago I went skiïng and I was afraid that my time there didn’t improve my running ability. But since I ran 10km in 47 minutes last weekend I’m confident I can make it. If I will make the 3:45, we will see.
I help 2+ friends with starting their (micro)businesses
Over the last months, I’ve been helping, at least, two friends with their businesses.
The first is coaching with Paul & Kiran. They help students by checking their spelling for documents like their thesis and motivational letters.
The second is for two German students/entrepreneurs. They are making a fitness shake that is personalized for each person. This way you get the perfect amount of the right protein, amino acids, etc.
I buy & decorate a house
This has been my most time-intensive goal. In my new house, I’ve put in a new floor (together with Stijn, Robbie, Frans, Tom, Désiree, Sjoukje, Romy, Onno and more) and painted all the walls. The kitchen, bathroom and other things were already great. And now I have a place I can call my own. And I like it.
Feel free to invite yourself for dinner or a drink.
All right, these were my goals for Q1 2016. I didn’t manage to get all my business things done, but definitively am happy with my house and the projects for good that I’m doing. See you tomorrow for the goals for Q2 2016.