Building a successful business once doesn't mean the next one will be straightforward. I knew that in theory, but starting Clipflow made it much more concrete.
We had experience we could use. We understood software, operations and working with customers. But we'd also moved from real estate marketing into a different industry with a different product.
In the previous business, we were good at door knocking, sales and direct outreach. With Clipflow, we were learning content and online acquisition. Knowing how to build didn't mean we already knew how to get this product in front of the right people.
There were weeks when that was deflating. We'd built something we believed in and had paying customers, but we still needed to work out how to find more of them.
One response was to go back to more direct work. The team started LinkedIn outreach and booked meetings. Darrell came down, and we worked on the landing page because people were telling us they didn't understand what we did.
Those were ordinary things to fix. Our past experience didn't exempt us from doing them, or make the current explanation clear enough.
I still get uncertainty about the business, even with the previous outcome behind us. This time the market, the product and the work around it are different.
The useful part of experience is having patterns to draw on and knowing you can learn. You still have to pay attention to the business in front of you. It has its own customers, problems and unanswered questions.
