Be who you are
Backstory: we're building a new thing: JDHQ. It's the consolidation of years of our stuff -- currently delivered by multiple platforms with multiple accounts, which is a terrible user experience and a nightmare to manage -- into one thing, that I'm building from scratch. It's going to be sweet. It'll launch next month.
There's a conventional wisdom that 'recurring revenue' is vital to a business. And how does one generate such revenue? Subscriptions.
There is a truth to this. I feel sorry for software developers who scrape $20 out of a begrudging user. You don't have to be Andrew Wiles to realise that single $20 purchases do not a living make; whereas $20 every year compounds, as long as you can keep last year's customers happy and re-subscribing. I gladly pay a whole bunch of subscriptions, and you should too.
So the first element of the backstory is: I had in mind this subscription model for JDHQ. Because They Say it's What You Should Do. But I always hated it. It just never sat right with me.
Next: I'm stressed. It's been a funny year. We moved out of our house city country, which sounds glamorous but is in fact traumatic. I'm not complaining, I chose this; I'm just saying. Life is upside-down. We're working 6.5 days a week on JDHQ, both of us. All day every day. And we miss our chickens. Ah god, we really miss our chickens.
Without revealing too much, let's just say that business is slow. The Northern Hemisphere's summer seems to be a dip for us. You guys shouldn't be organising your files when it's 30°C and still light at 10pm.
And given our singular focus on building JDHQ, I've done nothing to alleviate this natural lull. My last JD-related blog post was almost 2 months ago. Nothing on YouTube. No marketing. Nothing, anywhere.
So, again, I'm not complaining. It just is. I'm a bit stressed, and that takes a lot. It's not my natural state. It's hard to admit.
Years ago, I did something at work that I regretted.
Broadly, there are two types of people on a project. There are the conciliatory ones whose job it is to pacify: to join people together, to be calm. And there are the shouty ones, whose job it is to stir things up, to 'tell it how it is', to 'take no shit'. Projects need both types of people. I am very, very much the former. Like, alpha-former.
(I realised my natural role was Manager of the Favour Bank: everyone owes me one, and I owe them one back, and the entire project can trade through me. Need to get something done? Ask Johnny: he knows who'll help you. It's a role I love, because it's Who I Am. This role is entirely incompatible with being 'the shouty guy'.)
So on this project, some other team was being frankly hopeless1 and that was impacting us and, long story short, I went round their backs and escalated it to our SVP rather than working it out with them. Because I was really stressed. Not-sleeping-at-night stressed.
This was Not Who I Am.
The guy who I screwed over called me and lost his shit. And he was right. I was ashamed. I had been pressured in to betraying my very nature. The regret was immediate and profound, and I vowed never to do it again.
I did it again yesterday.
Lucy and I call you, our customers, 'the family'. We really do. How do we look after the family?, we ask. What are the family benefits?, we ask.2 It drives everything we do. It's at the core of every decision we make.
Yesterday I forgot that. And I knew it: I could see it happening. I fucking knew that I was not being Who I Am. I let stress, and frustration, and whatever other excuse I come up with, get the better of me.
(The details aren't important. Money.)
The family, of course, called it out. It's what family does. And because I already knew that I was not being Who I Am, it was easy -- actually a fucking massive, palpable relief -- to back down. To undo the stupidity. To change my mind. To do what I should have done the first time.
It's never too late to be Who You Are. The instant you notice that you aren't being: stop. Pull the emergency brake. Smash the glass. Hit the red button.
It's never worth it.