Building a Business with Vision
In this episode of the Commerce Journey Podcast, Brian and Cory discuss how you’re going to turn your vision of the future into a goal for your business. They also share practical tips about starting up your eCommerce business and staying the course.
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Machine Transcript – Creating Your Compelling Vision of the Future
Brian Krogsgard 00:03
Hello, and welcome to the Commerce Journey podcast. My name is Brian Krogsgard. I’m here with my partner Cory Miller. Hey, Cory.
Cory Miller 00:12
Hey,
Brian Krogsgard 00:13
how you doing, buddy?
Cory Miller 00:14
Good day in the neighborhood.
Brian Krogsgard 00:15
That’s right. We’ve…
Cory Miller 00:18
sun is shining pretty day.
Brian Krogsgard 00:21
It’s another day, another podcast on Commerce Journey. Today we’re talking about. I mean, what do you call this? It’s more of a was a vision thing. But it’s more of a feelings of an entrepreneur type of topic, because we’re talking about creating your compelling vision of the future for your business. Cory, I know this is one that you’re real passionate about. We’re gonna dig into that. hold off one second, though, because we want to tell you about our great partner in this episode, and all episodes of the Commerce Journey podcast, go to Commerce Journey.com slash go to check out the great deal that GoDaddy Pro has available to you. There is no better way to kickstart your side hustle using an eCommerce platform than signing up with commerce comm slash go. And starting with GoDaddy Pro is awesome. eCommerce starter package includes the domain sets up your WooCommerce gets like 30 something extensions included. And it’s $1 for three months, Commerce Journey dot com slash go Thanks to GoDaddy Pro for being an excellent partner and everything that we do. All right, Cory, fill me in on what you mean, what are we going to dig into here with creating your compelling vision for the future?
Cory Miller 01:38
Well, this, you know, in my rural career full time been doing it since 2008. I know the importance over and over and over making sure you get started off on the right foot in the right direction. This is course calibration. This is the preparation in your heart really synched up with your mind of why you’re doing what you’re doing. And, you know, we just talked about, and we just launched the stell. One thing challenge. And we did that purposely because we wanted you to go through the all of us were united in this, Brian goes through the motions of actually taking something and putting it online to sell. And one of our purposes, and that is to see if you like things like, do you like having to go back and forth with customers? Do you like putting the box together and taping it up and going to the post office? I mean, this is so critical, because
Brian Krogsgard 02:35
as for our mindset, right?
Cory Miller 02:38
Absolutely. And you know, getting your mindset aligned with what you’re gonna do. So often, we’re gonna talk about this a minute or so often, we just think about profit, we just think about Oh, man, you know, the example was, we could be selling COVID masks right now. Well, in a couple years, do you still want to be doing that? All of that? work for that? Does it like take your box? So that’s some of the things just the clips, what we’re going to do, because I know, you know, to Brian, like when you started Post Status for instance, you had certain motivations, and they helped you stay with the business for a long time. And I think even more importantly, make it a success.
Brian Krogsgard 03:21
Yeah. So there’s the idea of I want to profit driver, something that’s going to put, you know, food on the table. But I also want something that’s going to be fulfilling and be a business that I want to stick with. And how do we think through establishing that so that we know like, we look back on this five years from now, and we’ve been working on something that we can be proud of? And also made some money with, right?
Cory Miller 03:47
Yeah, yeah, purpose plus profit. That’s part of the equation. But if you just have profit, you can kind of we’ve seen this veer off course really bad. And it’s not that you won’t you can’t be successful if you just focus on profit. But I believe curious what your thoughts are, you could potentially be way less successful if you just do that. And you could find yourself in a miserable position. As you go. You’re not no entrepreneurs that have been that route, we’ve actually made those decisions to where we just focus on profit. And so I want to go back to let’s see, what would it be to 2015 2014 15? Brian Krogsgard and Post Status. I’m curious. So as you as an example, we’re going to share some stories from my own venture and venture and journey. But you know, to set the stage for this whole, what is your compelling vision of the future? It has to do with you has to do with your family if you have a spouse or significant other. Back when I started out, things were the way I didn’t have a family. I didn’t have two kids. I now have two kids. It’s changed when we start in commerce training, for instance. So I want to go back in the day and set an example. And we’ll talk through how you can really establish some kind of compelling vision, some kind of course coordinates. And then over time, it becomes more clear and more clear. So Brian, take us back to 2014 15, I think is the date, the time, the timeframe? Why did you start Post Status, your first big online thing?
Brian Krogsgard 05:25
Yeah, you got me thinking there in terms of creating products, with a, you know, purpose, and profit in mind. And I think that encapsulates what I was thinking back when I did that, because I was passionate about the web, I was passionate about the direction of the WordPress economy and this burgeoning ecosystem, and mine was a digital product. However, you know, you can be as passionate as you want. But when in this was my case, turning a side hustle into a full hustle, the profit equation has to play apart. So some of it was purely, can this be something that is sustainable? Can I sell enough of what of my product? And in my case, that was my writing and community that I was able to create for people in our ecosystem? Can I sell enough of it to sustain? Now, I was thinking, does that mean I have to make as much money as I was making with a nine to five, doing what I was doing? Well, no, because you’re literally starting from zero, you know, you’re starting from the start the starting line, like it takes time to get up to speed. So I’m really thinking, is the initial speed enough to get by? And then is my potential top speed more than or equal to or more than what I’m making in my nine to five? And then what extra benefits do I get, and in my case, it was working on my own thing, like, being in control of my own destiny with my business, which had which there’s good and bad in that, right? Like, when you’re in control, you’re also subject to the consequences if it doesn’t pan out. But that was the type of control that Yeah, added benefit to me, like that was a, that was a good thing that I’m I’m giving myself the capacity to be in control, and therefore reap the benefits, and be liable to the consequences. And for me, I think that calculation was an important part. And it was a lot of what I was thinking through, when I was trying to decide whether to do it. I think I probably thought through it too much, rather than just kind of going for it. Similar to you, like there was the safety net component, because I did not have kids yet. But I had kids on the way I think my wife might have been pregnant already. Like, why why not, you know, go out on your own, like, we know you’re about to start a family. So, but that was part of the equation, you know, like, does it make sense? Can I do this, she had a job she had, she or she has a job still, she has a job, she had insurance, like some of those things were taken care of through my spouse, that would have been really hard for me. So like that had to be part of my calculus, like some of it just purely practical. But that’s the type of stuff that was through my head. And at the core of that the purpose of the product was really jelling with where my focus and my, my mental energy already was. So pulling that into my full time income, like made it feel really good.
Cory Miller 08:50
So we’re really talking about right now. And I love that because you’ve through just sharing your story and what you’re thinking you sussed up some ingredients for what the compelling vision of the future is, and it’s whatever you want to make of it. We want to add some advice and guidance and share some mistakes too. But what one word we didn’t talk about, we talked about profit and purpose. And we mentioned those, but you also added passion. And I will give the caveat that, you know, it doesn’t passion can also mean interest. Like I’m interested in this. If Brian crossguard comes to me and says I want to start a coffee grinding business or some kind of coffee business, I want to be like, you’re really interested in that. Brian, you talk about it quite a bit. Now. how passionate are you? That’s another thing, right? But passion can also mean interest. And then I would also add another ingredient experience. So like not to say… By the way, all these things have caveats and disclaimers, but not to say you have to have the most experienced ever to do anything. But experience plays into this whole equation too. Because it’s a part of the success equation and successful I believe you should define for yourself but No for longevity, and for the financial and durability of your business that your eCommerce business, these are important equations to be talking about. Okay, so, Brian, if I pick apart your story for a second, you had experience with WordPress. And that’s what Post Status is a community of WordPress professionals. And you had interest in analysis like, these are things that I know about you going way back, you loved, you talk about even some areas, you probably will never start a blog about quite a bit.
Cory Miller 10:32
But I know they’re interests of you. And what that means for me is, if you’re talking about this, in our conversations consistently, it’s likely you’ve got a deep interest in enough to stay with it to stick and stay. And I’ll tell you real quick, where we should actually talk about the snowball, you know, the snowball momentum, starting a new project or a business, that going uphill is tough. It’s It feels like, you know, trying to roll a snowball appeal. And that’s why I’m we really wanted to camp out in the subject today get you thinking about your compelling vision of the future. So Brian, you might not have had this back in 2014, and 15. But it’s really the answer. Don’t want to get your thoughts about this. Try to think back to then and then think back today. Okay. And let’s match these up a little bit. Because I think these are anchors. So if I had been, you know, more in your life in 2014, and you’ve been like, Korea, I’m starting this thing, I want to call it Post Status. And I want to do this , I probably would have said, Brian, if you fast forward, and this is a Dan Sullivan, who’s the Strategic Coach guy. Question is in three years, if we’re having this same conversation today, what would you want to be true in your life, in your business? And that’s a part of the compelling vision of the future. So fast forward the tape and say, all of these things employee, I’m thinking about doing this thing called Post Status I’m thinking about serving WordPress professionals. Here’s my business model, fast forward my life. What do I want to be true? You had a pregnant wife you mentioned. So like, three years from that date, your first child, your son, who I know, now would have been three? So okay, tell us what if I’d asked you back in that day, what do you think you would have said,
Brian Krogsgard 12:22
I think I would have probably tried to forecasts some things from a business perspective. And then also, maybe from a life perspective, like, you know, one is, I want, I would I want increased flexibility relative to what I have when I’m working on someone else’s thing. So flexibility would have been something that I would appreciate about that setup about my own business, another probably would have been around. I say growth, but I don’t mean just monetary growth, like I also mean maybe influence in that, like I would want in mind, it’s an information product. And my voice is a part of that, I would want the information that I’m providing to have greater penetration in my market. So I want more people more important people reading and paying attention to what I was doing, because that’s what I was doing. Right, I was blogging, and I was, you know, writing about the ecosystem. So I would want to have maintained or increased my influence in that ecosystem, three years in. And then of course, I would want to, I talked about the starting speed and the top speed, I don’t necessarily know that three years in would be my plan for when the top speed would be there. But I would want to be going faster. You know, like, I would want to have some growth from a, from a business perspective, because I purposefully and I think eCommerce business owners need to do this, I set my starting speed, like I’m not shooting for the moon on year one here, like most of the time, you’re paying yourself a little bit in a new business, but you’re not, you know, it’s not like you’re planning to like pull in six figures or whatever your goals are. For your top speed you’re not necessarily doing that right away so but three years in, I would want to see some progress. And so I think that’s the stuff that I was looking at. And for you talked about spousal stuff like using as justification with my wife in terms of opportunity going in like you don’t go in it thinking Well, here’s the ceiling on this business, you know, like that’s not the best, best way to approach it and if there’s big red flags there then that’s something to consider too.
Cory Miller 14:36
So okay, if I said again, some things and then now I could fast forward and I know you and one I hear freedom. And by the way, most everybody’s number one spot on that is why they would pursue scherl venture is freedom. I hear it over and over I live it I know you run get to dictate for the most part of your day. You don’t have other people dictating that you have partners, of course, but like, then you don’t have a boss going. This is Brian, how you’re spending your day. So freedom, I’ve seen that you talked about influence. And I can certainly attest that you’re very influential post as extremely influential brand, and presence within the WordPress community. So you check those boxes, and it’s made money, continue to make money, we’re gonna make more money with it, it’s going to continue to. So that’s so interesting. So for those of you listen, I want you to go back and say, Okay, take aside whatever cool idea you have. And ask yourself in three years in the future, all things like even I hope it was helpful, Brian, even going like you had a pregnant wife, you would three years in the future three, five years, whatever works for you, you would have a three year old. Okay, so that means I know you and I know you deeply care about your family and being a husband, it would mean what does that mean? Do? How can I be a dad, you know, and that, and that all of that the reason why we’re just giving you as an example, thanks for being our guinea pig, is because it affects what you’re willing to do. It affects how long you’re willing to be in it. You know, my story going back, Brian was when I had since I’ve been 16. And been employed by other people. I had a job every two years, on average, until I started my business. And when I started the business, I knew in my heart, I had to say, I’ve got to make a five year commitment, which was a little bit daunting for me, because I’ve only had a job max like two and a half years. And I was miserable for the last six months of that. So like, five year commitment. And that’s what it takes. And it’s not to be scare you off from something that’s where you got to reevaluate your passion. But I knew for my sake, I had to go Cory, you cannot think about other things. You have to devote this next five years of your life professionally to this. By the way, when I get to the five year mark, I go, do I want to spend another five years here? And the answer was yes. I want to keep kept renewing it, by the way, if I could have, but I felt like it was it was the path had been chosen. And the market got crowded.
Brian Krogsgard 17:12
Can I interrupt you on that real quick, because that late, I had a really similar path where I had a job for three years, two year, one year. And it was like, I each one, I’ve quicker and quicker came to the realization that I need to iterate on this path from a like, which was always gearing itself up towards entrepreneurship. And then now, Post Status is the longest I had a job for five years, like you said, and then you react for another five years. I did too, except I made another iteration, which was I need someone Cory to come alongside me because that was at the five year mark, too. So like, it’s interesting, like, both of us have kind of these timelines that and I think this is a human emotion, right, in terms of business planning and career planning. Totally, of like, what is my arc? In this job? What is my arc? in this business? What are the milestones in this business? And you made me think about something which is, you know, you said you’ve made me look forward and say, What do I look you know what I want it to be in three years or five years or whatever? What about the course correction? Because the you know, let’s we talked about the like best laid plans are all completely changed as soon as the first bullet
Cory Miller 18:33
don’t survive the first bullet of action, right?
Brian Krogsgard 18:35
What you gave us the great quote, The War quote before but like, what about the course correction? Right? So you’re, you’re three years in, that’s your sin? How do you make the course correction? How does that fit in with this vision development.
Cory Miller 18:52
That’s an important caveat to all of this, Brian, that I’m glad you brought it up because things can and will change. Now I would be willing to bet in the next five years for your life. A couple things not going to change that you love freedom that you want to continue to have freedom that you want to continue to make a profit that you want to continue to do good in the world that you want to go back to the freedom part is continue to support your family and continue to live the lifestyle you want. And I would even say influence in any community would be a part of your values you know, but now doesn’t change much if you add a partner does it for me my hypothesis for you and I’m just putting these words in your mouth you tell me I’m wrong. When you brought me on, it was in supportive still same vision. I want freedom. I want influence. I’ve got it even more. I can get all of this more if I brought on the partner. And so yes, I believe your compelling vision can and will change but probably if you’ve done the exercise, right, your major we’ll just call them your major compelling aspects. Except your future probably won’t change. They’re the big themes, the automatic things that probably won’t change, the details may change. And even, like, for instance, …, say what?
Brian Krogsgard 20:13
even the products may change. I mean, we brought on Commerce Journey, in addition to Post Status, like that was a change, of course direction of product. And then the one other chip, I would add, there is over that time, I learned that I was missing an ingredient. And for me, my missing ingredient was collaboration. So bringing a partner in and, and partnering with you was me, recognizing that the freedom is one thing, the passion is one thing, the product is one thing, but the collaboration was an ingredient. It was something else I knew I needed course direction, shifting in because the collaboration was just as important as the accomplishment of doing the starting the business and all that I needed that collaboration as part of what I was doing.
Cory Miller 21:08
I think that compelling vision works in versions, just like software, 1.0, your vision and purpose status has evolved, has changed. The big, the big things have stayed the same, but that you go, Wow, if I add a partner, I could do more of this. Yeah, I’m, but I’m now on version 5.0. I always think about working in versions. And you know, I told you, Brian, you know this at iThemes, my company, when I started in 2008, I had no idea we do spend the bulk of my entrepreneur career selling backups and security and maintenance type projects. If you had gone back 15 years, and said, Cory, do you think you know, could you imagine in 10 years, you’re going to be doing this? I’d said No way. I don’t know anything about those things. And one, they’re not sexy, they don’t rock my boat. Now, version, one of my compelling vision was, I want to see if I can do it. I want to see if I can sell and build a business. And I was thinking about software that’s always kind of compelled me. It didn’t shake out exactly the way I thought it probably took me about six years to actually do the software. I’ve been thinking about more like SAS software. But I ended up doing what backup security and maintenance. Now what I was passionate about is building a team and that evolved a team, a community. And that evolved. That’s what I was really passionate about now, we had experts that are passionate about those subject areas like backups and security. Thankfully, I was passionate about building the business, building a team building a community of people that bought those that we serve and support it. I could have said that was true in 2008. But I wouldn’t have told you the fine tune details of it either.
Brian Krogsgard 22:51
Yeah, it’s funny to me, some of your course direction is visible by the name of the company. Because like, right, you started as Hey, work on iThemes. And that was, you know, you know, version one of what doing it meant like that what your company meant. And that was a that worked well, like it was a seven figure business for a couple of years. And then the path towards iteration and growth led towards the other things like backups and security and some of these other products. But all along there. And I’m a analyze you like you analyze me, you were able, you were able to accomplish new things. And I you were able to dial in on what was important, which was creating a great place to work for a team that you build in a work environment that you wanted to create, because I remember a couple of things that was key for y’all. While our whole industry was so focused on remote, y’all really dialed in as a company on creating an office culture, an office environment that was local, that was collaborative. That was modern. And I think the other thing I would say it was educational. You had projects like in the community, like the div you had, you know, shows and like community podcasts through iThemes, like when you guys used to sit on the couch and do those types of things, and, you know, broadcast out interviews and things like that, like that was stuff that was really inherent to the culture of iThemes early on, I think that was because of this vision that you had for the company and that that part I don’t think ever really went away for you either. And I think probably lead you to here where there’s some of that same element where we’re talking and we’re sharing with other people.
Cory Miller 24:46
You’re spot on. I appreciate you sharing that one because that has not changed. You recognize something almost 10 years ago I was doing that I’m still interested in doing that’s a good acid test right? Like that it all of this, and also the collaboration. You’re absolutely right. Like, I love to clap like when we started talking about the partnership. I was like, man, Brian does these things so well, we had overlap. But like, there’s a set of things I probably couldn’t do very well. But I was like, this is gonna be a good partnership. And so I still love the collaboration for part two. For me, it looks a little different. But here’s something your statement and questions is brought up. For me. It’s also I think, the part of this compelling vision of features. Who are you? You know, we’ve talked a little bit on some other podcasts and stuff about strengths assessment and personality assessments and stuff like that. I think they’re great tools just to help you kind of probably point out the obvious that you don’t know. But, you know, I think about the Character Strengths test, and I think you, you took this on talking about our partnership, it was helpful for me to just point out some things that these things likely won’t change. And if I look back at my life, there’s a theme there, you know, and when we’re talking about this, there’s themes in your life. Now, I think personality can change if you want it to change. However, there’s this great quote that I’ve heard recently, and it’s in the therapeutic type quote, but it was, you hurt where you care, and you care where you hurt. Knowing this about myself, it helps me understand when I look back at iThemes, why I created this incredible family like culture, because, you know, not to get too deep on everybody. But like, I grew up as a divorced, you know, kid of adores divorced parents, right multiple times, actually. And I didn’t have this idyllic Norman Rockwell thing, and I wanted to create this cool Play House so that informed, I’m only mentioning it to say in the forums, who I was informed what I built, I would say the same about you, Brian, like, we started talking about car sharing and want your feedback on this. You and I have always been, we kind of work comparing notes about what we would do another venture together. We love our partnership already with Post Status what we’re doing there. We wanted something else. We started comparing notes. You would say something, I’d say something we’re going man, there’s a big overlap. We both love eCommerce, we’re so interested in it. We built eCommerce businesses. We both love serving foreigners. And that was easy for us to go. Yes. So I’m curious, your thoughts on that, too, like, to the question specifically of who you are, informs what you build.
Brian Krogsgard 27:38
Yeah, I think, for me, a lot of it comes from inherent curiosity. So I, and the empowerment of I think, what people can do, that they don’t necessarily know that they can do, and helping them realize that. So a lot of people say, you know what, it sounds great to work for myself, it sounds great to be able to sell stuff on the internet, how you know, and like you’re, you’re helping teach them, you’re helping give them some guidance, so that they can kind of realize their own dreams and their own mission. And being able to do that is always been very rewarding. And in the WordPress space, and in the web space, I’ve been able to do that over the years, just by bringing something to someone’s attention. It’s not necessarily that I had some great insight. But like, I could capture something from one side, transition it and distill it a little bit, deliver it over here. And it was new and novel for someone else. And it helped them change the direction of their business or realize their dreams or their goals. And in our case, for Commerce Journey, it was similar. It’s like, Hey, I have this great product idea, or I have this thing that I’m really good at or really good at building or producing. But you know, what, how am I going to sell this online? How am I going to go the next step, and we’re trying to bridge that gap between someone with a good idea, someone with a, you know, a proposal, they know, like, they know, their their starting line, and we’re helping them get to that, that early pace, you know, like set that pace as an eCommerce entrepreneur. And that’s very satisfying for me too. If we have some stories, after when we start looking for course correction. You know, we get six months in a year in and we’re like, hey, what have we done so far? What stories are there of people that have started this journey? And how can we further you know, further this effort to do a better job of it. That’s the way I kind of think about some of that stuff.
Cory Miller 29:53
The other thing as I recall, we both had you had friends that had talked to you about starting an eCommerce business And I was helping people, as we were kind of coming up with this whole commerce training thing, as an example of creating a compelling vision of the future. We were connected, you know, and we were like, Hey, we’re trying to make friends that wanted to do something.
Brian Krogsgard 30:13
But yeah, and we were also just like, Hey, where is this information out there? Why is it so hard to piece together the way that we feel like it should be. So we said, we had a problem set. In that to Cory, there’s an element of this that I want to touch on before we leave, which is we talked about product and whether it’s the product itself needs to be something that interests you. You talked about selling utilities and backups, and things like that, and how that wasn’t what you envisioned. And I want to make sure that we reiterate for someone that says, hey, you know, what, I, I think there’s an opportunity selling these widgets. And the widgets are not necessarily something that I’m passionate about, I may have some expertise, which might be important for selling them. But it’s okay, if you’re selling something that you’re not overly passionate about. If there’s another component in there that you are passionate about, like the selling process, building a team, building a culture with those who that you’re working with, like you talked about those elements, that’s the passion does not have to be with what you’re selling, but you do need, you do need passion, in the work and in the somewhere along line in this process, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be what you’re selling. Like you could be selling something that’s boring, and you know, it’s boring, but it’s also something people need, it’s something people need to buy, like, the commodity things in life are also things that people need to buy, or the things that like, maybe you don’t want to buy a backup solution, but it does is important for you know, you to have for your website. That part doesn’t have to like, take your box in terms of passion. But something else has to end for you. I know it was the team element, it was the goal driven element of like what we want to accomplish as a group and what we want to do, what do we want to build here, in our business in our culture, and I just wanted to make that differentiation between, you know, passion for the product, you’re selling and passion for what you’re doing. Because I think it’s a really important could be nuance, but I wanted to clarify that.
Cory Miller 32:33
Yeah, you know, and it made me think there’s this thing, you know, chase your passion and all this kind of stuff, I will tell you, you, in my experience, you discover your passions. So, you know, even thinking about backups and security for a second. Okay. I did connect and discover passions for those. Now, I don’t have deep expertise in those. But I did have backup, but it came about as me personally losing content on my WordPress website. And we because we didn’t have backups on our servers at the time, and had some catastrophic crashes. Yeah, I always connected that story. That was a passion of mine. I don’t want you, Brian to lose your valuable side data. So that’s why we built Backup Buddy. So I could connect passion to that you need passion. And same thing with security, by the way.
Brian Krogsgard 33:28
Yeah, you need the passion and the fact that you have a quality product solving a problem in whatever market it is. Because you’re kind of on your own shifting sand or whatever the phrase is, if you feel like you’re selling something that doesn’t have a purpose in the world. So when I say yeah, your passion can come from the fact that your product is quality and solving a problem. Like I think you can get on a dangerous place if you feel like you’re selling vaporware, or if you’re selling something that’s low quality, or if you’re selling something where there’s like a whole bunch of other stuff that has a better matrix of price and quality. You know, like if you’re just losing on all those fronts, that’s not good. That’s when you need to have that course correction moment like, hey, maybe we’re making money, but like, the other stuff doesn’t connect, you developed a passion for the fact that you knew your product was doing good for the people that purchased it. That’s, that’s different, and that is a fine passion. But that doesn’t require you to be passionate about the fact that you’re selling, you know, something that backs up a website like that’s, these are very, two very different things.
Cory Miller 34:43
Yeah. Let’s, uh, let’s shift gears now. Because you broke up, you’re married, you were married when you know, you started the business to Erica. And she was actually pregnant at the time too, and I want to just hit on the sub But before we end, because most people, most of us, so just generally say have not just a spouse, but perhaps a significant other, you know, someone in your life, no matter who that is, you just think, if you’re not married, who’s your significant other, it could be your, your, your, your, your mom, you know, it could be a girlfriend or boyfriend, whatever, or just family in general. But so that’s the other thing, that component in this because if you have a bigger life partnership called a marriage, or you’re in a deep relationship, committed relationship, you also need to evaluate alignment, I think it’s so critical at if, as you’re starting out with your compelling vision that those match, like, you know, back in the day, you and Erica probably thought about this, I’m going to quit my job here, I’m going to start this company. And what that looks like, I think yours might have been nuanced, maybe you were at already made that flip.
Brian Krogsgard 35:59
So I think if I’m understanding correctly, finding the alignment with your important people in your life, there’s this element of, you don’t want them to be a roadblock, they need to be on the journey with you in entrepreneurship. And they also you also need an element of support and that. So you need support from your partner from your important people in your life. And an alignment that you’re on the same page, because some of your friction can be like what if you know that it’s going to be a slow path to getting back to whatever your revenue expectations are, but they don’t know that, like, part of the vision for the future needs to be alignment on Hey, we’re sacrificing some money up front, or we’re sacrificing some security up front, like I don’t have job security, necessarily, if I’m responsible for just selling my stuff online. relative to what I had job security is nine to five, but you know what our long term job security is much greater our long term, profitability opportunity is much greater the alignment on the risk calculation between you and those that are important to you, those that are also like, they are subject to your success and your failure. Like they benefit if you succeed. Yeah, and they lose with you, or they, you know, they are they are part of it. If you if you fail, if you have to change directions and figure something out down the road, like they’re a big part of that. So knowing having enough of a conversation up front to say these are the risks these are this is the potential, this is what we should expect along the journey. That is a really important conversation to have with your loved ones. And what I found was that I was afraid of that conversation, I think, and she was very supportive more so than I anticipated, like her fear was normal, but probably less than I anticipated her fear of to be like, you know, anyone’s going to be nervous, if you say, Hey, we make X dollars a month from this, it’s pretty stable, it comes in and that we’re not gonna have that. Here’s my plan. Her confidence in me was high, and it gave me encouragement to go out and work hard and do it. And that really assisted me on getting started.
Cory Miller 38:42
No matter if you’re single, or in a serious relationship or relationship, committed relationship or married, what could be the best thing. You need a support system, you’re don’t know the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. And as you’re contemplating your compelling vision of the future. I mean, if you are in a committed relationship, it has to involve you’re that person because it will drastically affect you know, when I’ve got high, high days, and it’s all things are good when I’ve got low days, my wife Lindsey kind of understands and as long for the ride because she knows it’s a joint compelling vision. Like when I left iThemes, we had a nest egg, and we took money out of the nest egg didn’t have a runway for me to find my path to the next thing. It’s taken a while to do that it’s doesn’t feel good to burn money out of your nest egg. And so having that alignment, I would highly suggest if you’re in a committed relationship, take a weekend a retreat and just align these things. What are the big things in three years go back to the question three to five years that we want in our life together and make sure you’re on the same page. It’s gonna if anything, just help you bushies you just said like Erica had more confidence that you even thought in her in you. And that was a boost man. And you know how it is I’ll take everything I can to give me a boost on this journey because it is tough work. It’s even as a side hustle to stay with something that’s called creating your, your business and an eCommerce shop, it’s going to take a lot of work. And so I’d highly recommend everyone listening, if you have a committed relationship, do this, do this tough work, and make sure you’re aligned on that same page so that you can do good together. The same goes for you. And I, you know, Brian, like, we’re in a committed relationship called a business partnership. If we had differing opinions about what we would do next, it was not going to be successful, we’d be on two different pages on the same page. And instead, you know, we found something that is very aligned. It’s the Venn diagram of menu overlap that we call Commerce Journey.
Brian Krogsgard 40:52
Oh, yeah. For anybody with a partnership out there, you have to approach your work partnership, like a spouse of their of their own, you know, like the same things that are important in your personal relationships are important in your business relationships. And that’s a huge component. All right, Cory, leave me with your final thoughts. In terms of creating a compelling vision for the future, what are the next steps for someone that says, like, you know what, I sit here and I realize like, I don’t have the vision for the future, but I’m already like, starting down the path. So what do tell someone? What do you leave him with for the next thing to do in that scenario?
Cory Miller 41:37
Take some time set aside to ask these questions in three years, five years, what do you want your life to be like? What do you want to be doing his work? Who do you want to be serving? Take some thoughtful time to do this. I promise you, it’s gonna only help your Commerce Journey as you go. And, again, just to say, if you’re in a relationship, committed relationship, include that person with you, in this sojourn, like meditative retreat, wherever you want to call it, get away, get thinking and get inspired. That’s the whole thing you’re going to need in energy and inspiration, as you’re rolling that snowball up the hill for the long term. And all of these things connect back to you have a compelling vision of the future. One point out right now is going to help you be more successful I promise you. How about you, Brian,
Brian Krogsgard 42:26
I’m on the same page as you I think, you know, making sure they’re on this. You’ve got somebody to go along with to plan with. You nailed it. I don’t have anything to add. Go to commercejourney.com Check out this episode of more, go to commercejourney.com/go check out GoDaddy Pro and all the awesome stuff they have. We’ll see everybody next time.
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