8 Months...Already

This is going to be a data heavy post. I probably will not keep up with this level of detail in the future because of the effort, but when you are a small business owner, it is interesting to look at how time is actually spent. Every person and every business is different, but I went into entrepreneurship to create a better balanced life and work on things that energize me, so I wanted to know how I was spending this time. This is month two of fully devoting myself to Radio Chatter, and it continues to be more energizing than I expected.

I was looking for an old email this month and stumbled across something I had forgotten. In the spring of 2024, I was invited to join a local mastermind group. The purpose of the group was to help each other level up in whatever we were working on. At the time, leaving my 9 to 5 was still a pipe dream. In my email to the group, I updated them on a goal I had set: “Make my W2 Offroad.” What I meant was figuring out how to replace my W2 income with overland or off road income, some of which would be Radio Chatter. I did not even remember setting that goal. In hindsight, it is interesting that even though I did not chase this immediately when I left my job, six months of exploration and experimentation somehow led me right back to it.

As I reflected on this idea of how I ended here, it goes back to a realization that you don't have to go after a fancy unicorn tech startup nor buy a boring business, but you can go after something small that makes you happy. I am reading the book The Minimalist Entrepreneur because I was inspired by the book Company of One and it re-iterates the concept of "grow[ing] your own right-size business."

The true magic of entrepreneurship is that you and your business can improve the quality of life of many people. And it doesn't have to be millions; "enough" is what you decide it is, not a specific amount. - The Minimalist Entrepreneur

November started strong on the business building front. It was the first month working with the marketing consultant we hired to help with digital advertising for Radio Chatter. We also started working on a custom product for one of our business partners.

Although we have bounced around between wanting to expand the products we offer to focus on what we have, I am excited about this custom product because it would be co-branded and drive people to our full product and website. They have the reach, we have the product. It is a win-win for both companies. The challenge has nothing to do with the product itself, but with the cost and trying to get it down to something reasonable for them while still allowing us to make a fair profit. One lever I began evaluating was moving our manufacturing from China to the US. Tariffs do impact us, although not as much as I expected, around seven percent. I assume casinos have something to do with that because playing cards appear to carry a lower tariff rate than some other tabletop products. Cards Against Humanity (NSFW) recently created a new product (it's not a game!) to avoided tariffs altogether. You can always count on them to make a joke out of anything.

November was also the first month I did not expect to spend any time on business acquisition or side-projects intended to earn income, such as the September hackathon or the consulting I did earlier in my journey. Last month, I predicted that in November my time would break down as: Radio Chatter around 65%, personal 20%, MSO 5%, and 10% flex.

So how close was the prediction?

Not bad.

Last month I also mentioned that I wanted to understand where my time was going inside the Radio Chatter bucket. When you are a new entrepreneur and small business owner, you wear every hat. Without any benchmarks, I came across this thread:

Based on it, I assumed I should be in the starting phase. Here is where I landed:

Marketing: 38%
Delivery: 62% (Assuming everything else is delivery)

More specifically:

If I compare myself to a stranger on the internet, and assuming the rule of thumb is even valid, the takeaway is that I likely need to spend more time on marketing. Honestly, regardless of what the framework says, that part checks out. I'd personally rather be working on the new product development, especially the mobile app, but the business side of me has to keep pulling me back to marketing. Clearly I need to pull myself to the marketing side even more because people cannot buy the product if they do not know it exists.

This month, we started paid advertising as part of our marketing journey. We have dabbled before, but now we have daily ads running. We are advertising our physical game because it is a perfect stocking stuffer. Our marketing is also targeted to the US due to shipping costs. That said, we did ship to Singapore this month and it cost the customer $31 just for shipping. That marks our fifth international shipment so far. Situations like this are a reminder that even when sales feel slow or I question if this was the right thing to do, people out there want our product and in some cases are willing to pay a lot to get it. And then I remind myself of quotes like the one from The Minimalist Entrepreneur, "And it doesn't have to be millions; 'enough' is what you decide it is, not a specific amount."

To go one more layer deep on the data: Over 20 straight days across October and November, I logged what I was doing every hour of every day, in 15 minute increments. It was the industrial engineering part of me wanting to run a time study...on myself. Now if you are wondering I would care, it is founded on the book Five Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom where he talks about the following framework for wealth measurement, outside of typical financial wealth:

• Time
• Social
• Mental
• Physical
• Financial

I was curious about where I was spending my time because I wanted that time flexibility and I want to be able to ensure I am balancing my time across all the types of wealth, especially the areas that have not always been a priority such as physical (exercise) or mental.

I stopped measuring because it was a lot of work, but here is the breakdown:

It may not be the most representative sample considering I took a vacation and there was Halloween which drastically increased kid centered activities, but still interesting none the less.

Ok, so to wrap up November: November also concluded my coaching sessions with my BetterUp coach. I hired coaches early on in this journey because I needed clarity and accountability. Now that I have the clarity and know what I need to focus on, it felt like the right time to redirect those dollars and time toward marketing and advertising for Radio Chatter. As this journey continues, I plan to keep investing in myself to make sure I have the right education and support for whatever phase I am in. So whether that is hiring another coach or consultants, the plan is to keep the investment strong and with the people and products that fit the part of the journey I am on.

To conclude with a PSA: If you have not looked into coaching programs like BetterUp or Lyra, I highly recommend it. In my case, the Lyra sessions were free through my employer at the time. Even if the platform looks like a therapy service on the surface, like Lyra, dig deeper. Many of these platforms have a mix of therapy and coaching options available.