2015 — The Valley of Death
2015 — The Valley of Death
I know, It is not good to have a word “Death” in title especially 2 days after New Year , but bear with me, this is not about actual “Death”, Ah, not an artificial death either.
Again, Bear with me.
I have been seriously busy , super duper busy with all my works in the past 8 months since I joined the start up group (in My Road to Entrepreneurship II post). Even though I am quite used to my IT work at HP, when everything else is add-on, my daily life , weekly life, monthly life and quarterly life becomes full of schedules. And not to mention, my baby girl Zelda (in Conscious Parent post) has arrived on Oct 2014, which adds in extra duties on mid nights, you know what I am saying if you are a parent.
I do have several goals and schedules like reading, triathlon training, volunteering, corporate training, blogging , day to day HP work, start up work, and last but not least, having family time.
My reading goes like this currently, Dale Carnegie ( The Art of Public Speaking) in my home toilet (I have book basket in my toilet), Shefali Tsabary ( The Conscious Parent) at my desk at home, Time && Business Week at my living and dinning room) and Diamond Cutter (which I read every weekdays over and over again) on my way to work.
I need to remind myself though, to choose the right kind of book to read in my toilet because, right now, practising of famous quotes and speeches is not really a pleasant one in the toilet. You can imagine….
My work out schedule is quite simple one to explain since I am targeting for Triathlon (in Triathlon post). 3 or 4 days a week, each day must include a pair of work out (swim+run) or (swim+cycling) or (run+cycling), any combination will do, with the minimum of 30 mins on swim, minimum 3 km run, minimum 10 km cycling. And I run to Mount Faber (Sentosa), every once in a week, as my office is near by Sentosa.
If I am too lazy or too tired due to work (Gym and swimming pool is at HP office), I skip the routine for the day with just a swim, because, swimming gives your muscle relax and a break away from gravity , will give your body a boost.
Yes, I will come to a death valley thing, bear with me. But, I am sure, right now, if you are reading this, you sense a bit of death, don’t you?
Back to scheduling, as for volunteering (in Volunteering post), I try to find time within a year for one or two events,as for corporate training, I plan to attend at least one or two training related to my corporate career, and this blogging , plan to publish at least one post on every 2 weeks.
Last but not least, as for my start up work, our group meeting is on every Wednesday and Sunday and the timeline and schedule for this is the most unpredictable one. We do have project plan, but the work done by individuals is based on each person own scheduled time since all group members are like me juggling with day job and start up work.
If I am not doing any of the above mentioned, I am peacefully breathing with my baby girl Zelda. Moments with her are the precious one. All the babies were born attention seekers, if she sense that I am not paying attention to her, she’ll cry or make sounds. In other words, she is teaching me how to become conscious parent and to increase self-awareness all the time. The magnitude of self-awareness is at the highest when I am with her, the second highest one is when I am in work out session.
Without further ado, here comes the death valley thing.
Every start up must goes through following 3 stages if you are properly building a start up company.
- Problem Solution Fit — This is where you fit your solution, to the real problem.
- Product Market Fit — This is where you fit your product solution to the customer demand of the market.
- Business Model Fit — This is where you fit your whole business model (resource, cash capital, product launch, marketing channel, go to market strategy, revenue stream, cost structure) to the real world of business.
The Valley of Death is between stage 2 and stage 3, meaning either the company is dead (not floating, losing money) or alive (floating, making profit or break even) after going through between stage 2 and stage 3. If the company is successfully going through the Valley of Death, meaning it’s making profit or break even.
And yes, my start up is passing through the valley of death in 2015 together with above mentioned schedules and goals for my personal life and my corporate career.
So I am sure, my title for 2015 is quite valid, at least for me, and to see either I am alive or dead passing through 2015 is to pass through 2015.
Here I am 2015……
P.S I plan to write a post only within 1000 words or more, but this one is exceptional, and I hope you bear with me, ah.. not again..
