Uncertain Confidence

Building in the Dark

Every week somebody on my feed announces they built a business and hit revenue inside 60 to 90 days. I read it at the end of another full day of building mine, more than a year in, and I think to myself, how?! Then I stay the course on faith.

I don't have the answer. I can't see their books any more than they can see mine. What I can give you is the first year from inside this company, because I suspect more people are living my version than theirs. The closest thing I can compare it to is land navigation in the Army.

Lying Awake

I remember lying in bed stressed about money going out while nobody was knocking on our door. I had a Part 107 certificate and the software. I had the will to do anything it took to look legitimate. What I did not have was a client.

That will led me into a few partnerships. Two organizations agreeing to build something together. The result was two organizations with each other's name on their websites. I laugh about it now. I realize I was looking for validation that we were working with someone, and I treated it like a huge power move. We weren't doing anything.

Everything and Nothing

I have worked on this company every single day in some form. Almost every decision I made was weighed against what the business needed. The people around me say the pace has been fast. More than once I have been told I am hard to keep up with. Most people say it as a compliment. I think. I actually like the rate I move.

I like the long hours I can pull, and none of them come out of my sleep. I average 7 to 8 hours a night. I still work out and get my yoga in, and I even journal at times.

Still, it feels like everything is happening and nothing is happening.

All of that is on me. We went the wrong way more than once. Some of those times we couldn't just turn around, so we drove across the median to get to the right road. I still don't know if it is the right road. It has been more than a year of iterating, trying to figure out the best way forward.

Working hard does not guarantee success. It never has. Success still requires it, every single day, including the days when nothing seems to be moving.

Land Nav

There is a feeling I know well from the Army. During evaluations and selection processes, I would be out on land navigation with an uncertain confidence about the direction I was going. I did not know exactly where I was, but for some reason I liked the direction I was walking.

Most of that reason was landmarks. The road or terrain feature I was aiming for would show up right around where I expected it, and every one that did told me the next point was coming.

It did not always go that way. I have been so exhausted on a course that I believed the sun was setting in the north. I have lost my map and kept going with a compass and my memory, and somehow I made it. I still can't explain that one.

Finding out you are lost is devastating on its own. Then the miles you have to make up start to weigh on you. Add a body that is physically broken down, and every inconvenience gets amplified. I can't describe the emotional pain, because the course is already designed to be difficult and taxing. Being lost stacks on top of all of it.

The highs and lows on those courses are huge, and your reaction to them is what makes you. Being the person you want to be is no problem when things are going your way. Who are you when they aren't? Robert Greene writes in The Laws of Human Nature about the mask people wear and what happens when pressure rips it away. That is when your authentic self appears.

Landmarks

Building AeroVis has been the same course. The times we drove across the median were the moments I found out I was lost with miles to make up.

The landmarks are showing up now. I am in conversations with people from all over the world, and the number of people we have met in the last year is staggering to me. Every event we are invited to opens conversations that lead to the next one. I have been asked to speak as a panelist at The Drone Forum, October 28 to 30. A lot of people now believe in what we are building, and that was not true when I was lying awake at night.

If you are building something and reading someone else's 90 day post, you will find out you are lost at some point, probably more than once. Look for your landmarks. Early on they tend to be conversations and people who start believing in what you are doing, and they show up before revenue does. On the days you find out you are lost and every mile weighs on you, pay attention to how you react. Nobody posts about that part. It is also the part that makes you.

I still don't know exactly where we are. The landmarks keep showing up about where I expected them, and for some reason, I like the direction we are walking.

Above. It. All.