Green-broke Nov 24
Hello equible friends,
Last month was a cocktail of people, places, and perspectives. So I’ll start with a little fun fact — did you know the word cocktail was originally used to describe a horse whose tail was raised upwards indicating they were mixed breed? Quite the cultural transcendence! 🐎🍸
Welcome to the third 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.
Grab yourself mixed breed drink to sip through this one!
Social… umm.. caterpillar?
equible got socials! And you didn’t miss it I’ve just been purposefully covert with them until now.
Last weekend was the Dalby Australian Stock Horse Sale, a familiar market segment and a good bedrock to start creating awareness. So I took a bunch of business cards, but people weren’t falling over themselves to talk to me about work, shame though – the cards are cool!
So I changed tact and posted equible’s research survey in the Campdrafters Unite! Facebook group to to approx. 29k members. This meant bringing socials out of the cocoon and it worked. So far equible’s got 25+ survey responses and 150+ new followers in two days(!).
Big shout-out to Holly from Kennallywood for boosting this by sharing page invites, legend 🙏
Do the thing
The last month felt like being in a horse walker – doing a lot but getting nowhere. I spent a lot of time mingling, defining, and creating awareness. I got some valuable connections, insights, and experience sure… but it didn’t get me much closer to having an MVP.
If you’re in my orbit you will have heard enough about Chris Williamson (sorry, not sorry). One of my favourite bits of his is the ‘list of things that are not doing the thing’ (and yes, ironically listening to Modern Wisdom isn’t doing the thing either). For me and equible, it’s time to do the thing, time to go out to the big paddock.
This shift from discovery and definition to build for a non-tech tech founder is where a few trade-offs rear their ugly head (I had to 🐴). These are some of the decisions I’ll be working through this festive season:
Engineering: DIY vs hire vs recruit.
Funding: Self-fund vs raise capital.
Platform: Web vs mobile app.
Getting fit for it
Like a horse in a walker, I need to be fit for the next bit of work. As the military adage goes; Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance (7 Ps). In Backable: The Surprising Truth Behind What Makes People Take a Chance on You, Suneel Gupta and Carlye Adler call pitch practice playing exhibition matches. Basically — plan, prepare, and play the pitch at every opportunity which I’ve done a lot with my inner circle and potential customers, but very little with investors and VCs.
Recently, I connected with Yotam Rosenbaum from 77 Partners. I was nervous stumbling into this opportunity before I was pitch-ready, but I couldn’t not try. It was no fairytale meeting. It took a few goes to explain the concept, his advice was like eating my own dog food, and it was a draining 30 minutes when I knew I’d lost him in the first 5. Nevertheless, I am thankful Yotam stuck it out with me.
At the end my head hung low like a breaker after their first day mustering. But according to the greats, the more wet saddle blankets the better. So this was the first of many exhibition matches and next time I’ll be a lot more fit for it.
We’ve reached the tail end of the third issue. I hope you’ll keep joining me for the ride. I look forward to the next stride with you.
Best,
Emily