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✏️ Summary

Lessons in Failure: What I learnt from 2024

2024 has gone by in a flash - it feels like yesterday that I was making this video - talking about 2023 and what I learnt. In more ways than one, this version of me feels like a baby compared to what I know now. Hopefully next year I feel the same way.

Before we start - something for the holidays. When you go home, some people will react with mockery when they see how different you are to what you were before. When people tell you 'you've changed' - it's because they don't know how to say 'you've grown'. Take it as a compliment.

What Went Wrong: Learning from My Mistakes

Reflecting on failure is incredibly valuable. It’s the only way you can guarantee that your failures weren’t for nothing. Here were my biggest failures from 2024 and what I took away from them.

Switching

In 2024, I started 3 different businesses. A community for founders, then an AI automation agency, and finally WordRobin.

The switches reminded me just how expensive and time-consuming it is to go after a new, shiny opportunity. The visual in my head is a person standing in the middle of an intersection, flailing about nervously because he can't decide which way to go.

I was stuck because my only goal for so long was to simply make more money. Now that I didn't have that goal, I didn't know where to aim.

I was only able to move on past the 'stuck' phase when I reflected back on what I wanted. I wanted to enjoy my work more. I didn't need to build a service business. I could do something I was proud of that also made money.

That is when WordRobin started to take shape.

Another helpful mantra is: "don't sacrifice your first million for your next 10 million".

No doubt I am far away from my first million, but the idea is that you should not switch opportunities because you see something shinier and better.

Intensity

There is a kind of blue-hot-intensity that you need to do something that feels painful, that you don't want to do, because you crave the goal so much.

This intensity is useful - and I recommend cultivating it - but it can be offputting to the wrong people.

I used to commit completely to this intensity. Partially because I did not want to lose it's awesome power, but also because I was not very secure in my ability to draw on it.

Kind of like being in the cold - it's almost easier to stay cold, than it is to get warmed up and have to face the cold weather again.

But somewhere along the way, I got some feedback from my team that I was 'scary'. The intensity came off as anger to other people, and it did not help me get the best out of them.

Learning to 'mask' this intensity, or rather direct it more internally, has been a helpful skill to learn.

Relationships, Collaboration, Teamwork

In 2024 I spent over £3000 trying to build relationships that would further my progress.

I spent £2500 on an entrepreneurship social club

And £500+ on a mentor who I spoke to weekly.

I found two things.

One, mentorship is only as effective as the mentor. The more experience your mentor has on the specific domain you're working on, the better their advice will be.

Two, the effectiveness of a group of people is heavily influenced by the environment. If you meet a group of accomplished entrepreneurs under a social setting, they are less likely to be helpful for business.

What is the takeaway?

Mentorship works. I just need to find people who have gone where I need to go. If I need a mentor, I should look for people who have built a successful consumer SAAS, or people who helped other founders get there.

I know that I don't care about parties, even if it's under the guise of some 'business social' umbrella. I don't think I will be looking for alternative social clubs.

Focus, Focus, Focus.

The biggest lack I saw both in myself and in my job is focus.

There's a saying, 'businesses die of indigestion, not starvation'.

When things start working, it can be extremely tempting to do new things - especially because that's what got you to where you are now.

I felt this personally when I was trying to build the AI Automation Agency along with my own SAAS. I figured I could use my own SAAS as evidence that I could build things, and use the work I was doing for clients to implement best practices into my own SAAS.

What ended up happening? I was spread so thin that I found myself dreading new client calls because it took away from working on my own SAAS. In an extreme sense - argue me this - that someone who has 10 things on their plate is more likely to succeed than someone who puts the same effort and energy into one thing.

I also saw this happen within a team setting. I lead a development team of 10 or so engineers. When the team was building one core product, we got more done per unit of time. When we were pulled away by one-off requests and feature updates, the team was scattered.

If you have a powerful engine that wants to go forwards, backwards, left and right all at the same time, you end up burning a lot of fuel and going nowhere.

What will I do instead?

I am being much more deliberate and careful about what I work on. My personal process (borrowed from Elon Musk and Alex Hormozi) goes: Goal --> Constraint --> Plan --> Execute

For WordRobin, that looks like this:

1. Goal: I will get my first paying customer by the end of Jan

2. Constraint: I need to advertise, and find out what is causing people to 'churn'

3. Plan: I will keep reaching out to prospects through Linkedin and paid ads, and watching how people interact with the software to fix confusing user experience or messaging.

4. Execute: I will run this in 'sprints' - roughly one week cycles where I reach out, monitor, fix, and repeat.

What Went Right?

It wasn’t all a disaster! Some things did go well 🙂 Celebrating wins can remind you what you’re doing all this work for. Here were some things that did go well in 2024.

Consistency

I was able to get up and work, consistently, without failure for the whole year, bar maybe one or two days. Even when I felt like stopping or didn't quite feel like getting up, I got up. When I didn't know what to work on, I still worked on something.

I built WordRobin from an idea to what it is today in 100 days. It feels slow, but it's faster than I would have expected. If I took 1 day off in 100, I would have lost 1% of my progress. If I took 14 days off (1 day/week) that is 14%.

How was I able to improve consistency?

The biggest factor around consistency came from time spent working. I have been waking up before 5am for over 2 years now. But up until August it was still a daily struggle to make it work. I made one simple change which has made waking up early a non-issue.

I got a loft bed.

By setting my alarm down away from the bed, I have no choice but to get up early.

Eliminate alternatives to get to the result. Environment always wins over willpower in the end.

Leverage

2023 was a year of grinding, exhausting volume. It's not fun to spend hours every day customizing Linkedin messages and sending them out to potential clients. It was a necessary activity that took up most of my time. In 2024, I invested in a piece of software called Waalaxy (I'm not sponsored or affiliated, but it has done what I needed it to do).

Using the software, I could collect a list of people to reach out to, and automate my messages to them.

This is a form of leverage. Once I realized that sheer volume was not enough to get the outcome I wanted, I had to find ways to get more OUT for what I put IN.

In 2023 building a SAAS felt like 'the easy way out'. Truthfully if I started buliding in 2023 I would have been avoiding learning sales and marketing. I no longer have this fear because I made the thing I dreaded work. Now I know I can crank out sheer volume, I can add leverage to get even more out of myself.

What forms of leverage am I using?

According to 100 millionaire investor Naval Ravikant, there are four forms of leverage:

1. Code

2. Content

3. Collaboration

4. Capital

I am using the first 3.

I am building code - code can be deployed without incremental costs - build once, sell to many.

I am working on content through my writing - writing was the original form of leverage. Write once, share to many.

I am working on collaboration through leadership - collaborating with others lets you do more than you can by yourself. To think otherwise is mathematically incorrect. You might lose some efficiency, but you can make up for it with volume.

Goals

My goal in 2023 was to not be broke.

The goal shifted early 2024 when I got my first paying client.

When I saw the road ahead to scale, I realized I was focused on the wrong thing.

Revenue is the consequence of value. It's not a goal in and of itself.

The fun part is - revenue brings in capital - which is in itself a form of leverage. This is why the game of business changes as you play it. When you're a freelancer, you have fewer options than if you're Apple.

What is my goal now?

The simplest goal is to embrace the adventure of my life.

In work terms, what this means is that the journey itself becomes the goal - and the goal becomes a checkpoint to a new level of the game.

I want to see what happens when I am at 1m ARR - 10m, 100m... I want to meet that version of me, and gain all the lessons I need to learn along the way.

I am infinitely grateful for the skills I gained in 2023. From there, I learnt I could handle difficult situations that seemed impossible. 2024 has been the year of adding leverage to volume. Through software, leadership, and code.

I will do what is required.

I have proof that I can live up to that statement.

Looking Ahead: My Focus for 2025

My goals for 2025 are simple. Keep putting in the same amount of work, and keep improving what I work on.

I suspect 2025 will be a year where WordRobin starts to gain some amount of traction. The goal is to get to a point where I can say "If I do X, I get Y paid users."

Personally, I just want to keep improving and learning. As long as I keep up my rate of progress, I think I will be able to look back on 2025 and be proud of how far I have come.

🔗 Progress Update

Making it useful is not enough.

I have been carefully monitoring the onboarding process for WordRobin. People don’t care how good something is. If it’s not immediately evident how something will be useful to them, they don’t want to use it.

I have been focused heavily on the onboarding journey and user flow.

It doesn’t matter how good something is. If it’s hard to use, people will move on and forget about it.

Initial Survey

I saw a lot of people click onto the main dashboard, then simply close the tab. There was not enough information on what they could expect from WordRobin and how they could get started.

So I made an onboarding survey for new users. The journey starts with a set of questions. These serve two purposes - to help the user imagine how they will use WordRobin, and to help people filter themselves out (for example, if you are a script writer looking for a creative writing tool, you probably will not use WordRobin).

Guided Start

Next, I saw a lot of people click onto create a new document, then simply type in a couple of words and close the tab. Users were not prepared to create an entire document on WordRobin to see how it could help them.

So I built functionality to help users get some words on the page. It guides them through the process of creating a basic template from which they can build their document.

Constant Tweaks.

There are countless tweaks, bug fixes, and new features that I need to implement. I’ll be getting back to work on code after I finish this newsnetter!

What’s Next?

Like I mentioned in the post above - It’s about iterating through the goal cycle! Build, measure, repeat.

That’s all for now!

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Ben | X