It’s been a while since I’ve posted and a new post is more than a little late overdue and this particular post is inspired by a similar post form Ed Freyfogle, an entrepreneur, investor in Storage Made Easy, and an ex-colleague and friend.
So, jumping straight in:
First a look back at 2015: Perhaps it is a sign of age, but 2015 went way to fast. It seemed like I blinked and we jumped form January to December. This was in part due to how busy I was at Storage Made Easy. The business kicked on another notch and I spent a lot of time travelling to Tokyo, Vanouver, and numerous trips to San Franciso and New York scattered throughout the year.The US business in particular has increased dramatically during 2015 with it accounting for over 70% of the total business closed in the 2015 year.
Not withstanding this the stresses and strain of running a bootstrapped startup, in a world of overfunded / cash rich startups, was the usual heady mix and roller coaster of ups / downs but we more than held our own and established SME as a global player in th Enterprise File Share and Sync Market for the adaptive enterprise.
1. Business: The aim is to sustain the 100% Year-On-Year growth that Storage Made Easy has achieve in the last seven quarters whilst continuing to grow the team and innovate the technology.
2. Exercise: Over the years I have devised a personal exercise routine that I can do at home (or hotel rooms) that involves floor exercises (press ups, chair dips, etc) and stretching. Due to sciatica, a hangover from a back op’ a few years ago, I augmented this routine last year with Yoga. It takes time to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t but the added Yoga has really worked to the point where the sciatica has totally gone (touch wood). For 2016 my challenge to myself is to try and incorporate more aerobic work into my routine (not always easy with my schedule).
3. Improve my Spanish: My wife’s parents are Spanish and she is fluent in Spanish. My excuse in the past has been lack of time to dedicate to improving my own Spanish, and despite that not changing in 2016, I am going to make an effort to bring my Spanish up to scratch.
4. Read more Books: I probably read less books in 2015 than in any year of my life. This is probably due to being busy but also due to generally reading more blogs, articles etc. In 2016 I aim to put that right and am currently reading Programming in Go by Mark Summerfield and also ‘The last Navigator‘ by Stephen D. Thomas.
5. Finish my Book: I have been writing a fiction novel for the past couple of years. I pick it up intermittently and then it does not get touched for a month or so. This year the aim is to try and get it finished (but then again this was also the aim last year….).
6. Listen to more music: Another consequence of being over-busy was not listening to as much music as I normally do. I aim to rectify this in 2016 and the year has already started off well in that regard. If you are a fan of soul, funk, RnB,then you could do a lot worse than pick up the new Album, by Paul Carrack, Soul Shadows. My personal favorite album of 2015 was Jekyll and Hyde by the Zak Brown Band.
6. Decide whether to move or not:. My wife and I have been debating whether to move or to have an extension on our existing property. In 2016 it’s time to bite the bullet and decide which.
7. Learn a new programming language: it’s been a while since I attempted this and I am currently putting some effort into learning the Apple language, Swift.
8. Communicate don’t Commute: This is something the Author Arthur C Clarke was fond of promoting and with modern communication technology it is becoming easier than ever to pay it some credence and change meeting practices.
9.Take time to look up: In football terms (soccer) players are often told to ‘raise their head’ and’ look up’ so they can see what else is occurring on the field around them. This is a good metaphor for business and life in general and I’m going to try and do more of that in 2016.
10. Life is not an audition: Lastly I want to remember each and every day this cliche as it’s easy to treat one day very much like another and as recent losses have taught me, you never know which day will be your last.