Green-broke Dec 24
Hello equible friends,
I hope you all had a fun and safe festive season nose-bagging with friends, family, and fur babies. If you’re anything like me, you will feel like a Shetland pony at high risk of foundering!
Welcome to the fourth issue of Green-broke, a monthly newsletter for those interested or invested in coming along for the ride with me. This is a monthly update for you and a routine check point for me, keeping you informed (or more likely entertained by the ups and downs) and me accountable.
In the last month, I’ve had brief moments with my feet up to reflect, muster my thoughts, and find my riding boots for another year of well… founder-ing.
Looking forward, looking back
In an earlier green stage of my career an old stockman taught me to look behind myself as I rode out to muster because the scrub changes from different directions. I liken this to reflecting on starting up equible so far. Looking back with a different lens has helped me learn from last year and given me energy for the New Year. Here are some of my reflections:
No man’s land is normal – it’s been a tough six months personally, but according to Steve Bartlett it’s a right of passage (see here). Naturally, there are founders solving for this too, I’ll have my first Founders Sport Club meet in January.
This is an investment in me too – I thought of my work on equible as an investment in the business which it is, but it’s also learning and development for me. A relative of mine said it well over Christmas “you can spend $70k on an MBA or you can put $10k into an account and start a business”.
I am very lucky – I’m not the kind of person who writes daily gratitudes. But when I think about this venture, I think how bloody lucky am I to have the privilege, ability, and opportunity to work on my ideas!?
In summary our king of country music said it best…
“I’ve come a long way down the track. Got a long way left to go.”
Slim Dusty
Course correction
At the start of last month a little birdy forwarded me information about carsales launching payments. A digital marketplace for horses was the first concept for equible, basically carsales for horses plus payment which was not only the core value proposition, but also the part that was unviable. Now carsales appeared to solve for this the initial idea could be feasible after all. So I decided to dig into this a bit more…
Just under the surface were solutions that make carsales for horses viable to build – yay!
But I hadn’t found them in October before I pivoted to a services marketplace – neigh!
This bittersweet discovery led me to a fork in the road for equible; stick the course with services or go back to horses? All things considered I ultimately felt going back to the initial concept is a necessary course correction, so a digital marketplace for horses it is. Apologies for the whiplash, I did tell you this would be a rodeo!
2025 LFG
Being back on the right track was the perfect last minute motivation to wrap-up 2024 and get excited for 2025. Here are a few equible ins and outs to kick-off the New Year.
Ins
Numbers nerds, please help me 🤓
Fund raising 📈
More cowboy core 🤠
Outs
Discovery, time to put the blinkers on 🎯
Bootstrapping 🛠️
DIY uniform (IYKYK) 💅
We’ve reached the tail end of the fourth issue, I hope you’ll keep joining me for the ride. I’m grateful to have you trackside for the next big lap!
Best,
Emily
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