One year in the entrepreneur jungle

It’s been one year since that decisive moment when I quit my job.

In the last 12 months I started and failed a small marketing agency, opened a chain of coworks whose success is still to be determined, and I had a second child.

It has been an intense year to say the least.

The list of mistakes, learnings, and personal discoveries is long and ever growing. But there is one particular area where I tripped up multiple times this year, one principle that I failed to apply and that brought unnecessary grief and frustration.

Short term fixes always come back to bite you in the butt

I have understood this principle both intellectually and conceptually for many years. I have read and heard it in many shapes and forms. Yet even then, I neglected to apply its wisdom in the day-to-day hustle of building a company.

I would like to share some real examples of short-term fixes that seemed like good ideas at the time, but really weren’t.

Mistake #1: The floor

When remodeling our first cowork we underestimated the real cost of designing and creating a beautiful work space.

Originally the floor was covered with ugly white tiles stained from years of use. The place felt more like a dental clinic than a cowork. Our plan was to rip up the tiles and put down a layer of concrete to create an industrial look and feel. Easy, efficient and super attractive.

Well, it turns out that covering three floors with concrete is a lot more expensive than we had anticipated. And to make things more complicated, we were discovering other additional costs for which we hadn’t planned.

We had to make a quick decision.

We decided to rip up the tiles and just paint the floor. It wasn’t what we wanted, but we needed to cut costs somewhere, and this would definitely save us money.

So we painted the floor and it looked great for the first few months. But as we began to pack the cowork, the floor started to suffer.

First the paint began to chip where the chairs made contact. The chipping then turned into holes that spewed dust and sand.

We were back to square one deciding what to do with the floor.

Do we go with another cost-effective quick fix or the original option of a solid layer of concrete?

It made sense at the time to cut costs and go with the cheaper option of painting the floor, but we had no idea that this would ultimately bring us frustration, customer dissatisfaction, loss of time spent trying to fix the floor, and all sorts of cleaning issues.

If we could quantify all of these factors, how much cheaper was this option really?

Lesson learned: you can cut costs by skimping on quality now, but in the long run you will pay even more trying to fix and maintain.

Mistake #2: The paper towel dispenser

It’s a busy day with back-to-back meetings, endless emails and a growing to-do list. All of a sudden a member on my team who is responsible for cleaning comes to me with a problem.

“I can’t close the paper towel dispenser. It’s missing a part.”

We are striving for impeccable customer service, and leaving it hanging open is not exactly the image we are aiming for. So I take a few minutes to check out the problem.

I don’t know how or why, but a small metal hook inside the metal case of the paper towel dispenser disappeared, never to be found again. Without it, we couldn’t close the case; it would just hang open.

Feeling a little flustered and already thinking about my next meeting, I say

“Just put some tape on it. We’ll figure it out later.”

A couple of weeks went by without a proper solution. Frankly, I forgot about it. Then a few days ago my partner notices the tape and tries to take it off. And off comes the paint with it. Not good.

Lesson learned: it’s easy to create temporary fixes and then forget about the nagging in-your-face problem, especially when you are busy or under pressure. But, almost always, the problem comes back amplified.

Mistake #3: The short-term carrot

Mistake #3 is having a family.

Just kidding!

Nothing is more important to me than my wife and daughters.

Yet my actions don’t always reflect this statement. I often get so carried away focusing on the short-term carrots of finishing my to-do list at work or developing other fun side projects.

Why?

Because the results are easily visible. They are immediate.

On the other hand, you often don’t see the tangible results of spending time with your kids, reading to them each night, or playing hide-and-go-seek, until perhaps many years down the road.

It is also difficult to see the immediate results of coming home, being present, truly listening, and connecting with your partner. Though it is easy to see the dramatic result of not being mentally present at home many months or years later. By then, it’s almost too late.

We constantly make the mistake of sacrificing the long-term in favor of the short-term. Because it’s easier, more tangible, and gives us instant gratification.

None of us sets out to be unhappy, alone and burnt out. Not one of us sits down and pencils into our journal: be unhappy and truly alone by the time I am 50.

Though many people end up arriving at this destination in disbelief — how did I get here?

You get there because you consciously focus on short-term fixes and wins, and forgo the necessary investment in personal development and relationships.

Sadly, I have made this mistake often throughout this last year of being an entrepreneur. I have brought work home more than I should have. Instead of going to the park to play tag, I have prematurely created “bedtime” so I could get back to work instead. Lame, I know.

Lesson learned: it’s easy to leave for another day the fundamental investment in ourselves and in our relationships. Often that day never comes. We will always be busy, and life just seems to get busier.

This second year in the jungle, I hope to spend less time hacking furiously at the trees and more time making sure I am steadily heading in the right direction, to where I want to arrive.