Almost three years ago I set out to write a weekly blog. Over those three years, I have probably missed 12-15 blogs. Three of those were the last three weeks.Â
It turns out I was a little exhausted from a whirlwind four months and all great intentions went to the wayside.
For those that have never gone through a transaction, it is painstaking. It isn’t fun. Not at all. However, the outcome is worth the pain.
In May we were approached by PSG Equity and the timing couldn’t be worse. I was heading on vacation to Belize. I was asked to do a demo while there. There was a major problem: the WiFi was terrible. I could get a good connection sitting outside my room but not inside. However, sitting outside wasn’t an option because it was very windy and the best noise canceling was no match for it. So, I sat as close to the sliding glass door inside our cabana to get some semblance of WiFi.
The day prior to the demo, I sat by the pool and ran through my pitch a dozen times. That night I made my family endure two rounds of the pitch and demo.
I had a meticulous demo path, leveraging Chrome’s tab groups with each group a second long, from left to right. I was as prepared as anyone at the expense of enjoying an amazing country. Belize is my favorite place and while I pretended to snorkel I was really floating on top of the water thinking about my pitch.Â
I’d rate my pitch a solid C+. I didn’t want to expose anyone else at the company to the potential deal, so I took it upon myself and did my first demo of our product. With the pitch behind me and four more days left in Belize, nervous preparation turned into “ugh, did I do well enough?” and “do they still want to buy us?” thoughts.
As it turns out, I did just fine and the transaction with PSG happened in September.
Those were four long, painful months and, quite frankly, my pitch was less than 1% of the reason. It came down to what we have built over the last three years. When I was brought on in 2019, I inherited a sort of sleepy lifestyle business. We poured millions into the product and engineering. We pivoted the company to be Customer First and turned to a highly transparent organization.
None of it would have happened without an amazing team in place – both the current leadership and all team members, as well as prior leaders that help along the way. It also wouldn’t have happened without amazing partners and most definitely without a customer base that we have turned into raving fans.
The thing is, we are just getting started. With a fresh start with PSG, we are poised to take things to the next level and use their investment to finish all the things we set out to do initially but haven’t yet accomplished. This includes product features and upgrading processes and tools to serve customers even better.
The missed vacation will be worth it when we turn the next corner and further catapult both ourselves and our customers to new heights.
For those that are customers or partners already, thank you for the ride. However, buckle up. It is just beginning.
