I believe strongly in the impact of timing. When I incorporated CCAW, it was spring 2007 and the economy was going strong. I figured this trend would continue, so a few months later I made a leap of faith and quit my job. And you know what happened next. In 2008 the country was in financial crisis. Things looked bleak. No one was buying my products and my last employer was laying people off (no way would it rehire me). For the next two years or so, I was in survival mode.

For CCAW’s business model to work as I envisioned, I had to pitch a new way of doing business to automotive vendors. In 2007, most of them weren’t receptive. But in 2009, they were open to almost anything. I seized the opportunity and never looked back. We took that new way of doing business, added some technology, and over the next decade built a company with eight-figure revenue.

Looking back, I can see what happened. I finally got the timing right. In 2007, I was too early. My vendors were doing well financially, so they had no incentive to try new things. A year or two later, they were desperate for new ideas—with revenues down 30%–40% they were looking for ways to grow again.  

I believe you can be too early, too late, or right on time. Sometimes this means you have a good idea but your timing is off. Recognize when you’re too late or too early and adjust accordingly.

Tomorrow, I’m speaking with a group of rising entrepreneurs about my experience founding CCAW. They’re all very early-stage, don’t have established customer bases, and may not have a product–market fit yet. I’ve been pondering what will be most helpful considering the allotted time (it’s hard to condense more than ten years of insights into twenty minutes) and the reality of the pandemic. I decided to prepare by mapping my CCAW journey in a lifeline (a diagram of the major highs and lows of something, such as a life or a career).

Doing this exercise recalled to my mind lots of great (and not so great) times. I decided to focus on sharing the lows of my journey. My goal isn’t to be negative or pessimistic—quite the opposite. I’m assuming things have gotten very difficult, very fast for this group. By sharing my low points, I hope to communicate these points:

• Take advantage – Negative experiences mark us the most, and they shape entrepreneurs. Appreciate this time as a learning opportunity.
• Change – People are forced to embrace change when times are tough. Make wise changes.
• Cycles – They’re inevitable. Those who survive downturns ride the wave up and do well. Focus on keeping your business alive.
• You’re not alone – Every entrepreneur (and every business, for that matter) is dealing with the same pandemic. Find a peer group. Their experiences—if you pay attention to them and apply them—will help you navigate this difficult time.
• No comfort zone – When you’re uncomfortable, you’re usually growing. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
  

More and more state governors are issuing stay-at-home orders to protect people from exposure to the coronavirus. Consequently, many of us are spending more time inside than we usually do. I assume that some view this positively and others negatively. Either way, the orders are a short-term fact of life that we have to deal with.

Though far from ideal, this is a rare opportunity for some people (including me). Today I thought about what I can work on that will have long-term importance to me and that requires some concentrated time.

Here are some of my ideas:

• Research things of interest – I’ve been interested in trading stock options for years. Now I have time to read about it.
• Care – Call a wiser family member (Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa). Considering the effect this virus is having on wiser (read: older) people, I’m sure that most of them are anxious (even if they’re not saying so). Calling to check-in will make them feel cared about.
• Work on a project – Now is a great time to work on anything you’ve been putting off around the house. I’m unpacking a ton of boxes.
• Check on friends – I have great relationships with a decent number of people that I don’t talk with more than once or twice a year. I’m reaching out to see how they’re doing.

If you’re already staying home, what are you doing? If you’re not, your time may be coming—consider making plans.

Today I read the weekend paper (yep, I still read a physical paper), and it was pretty scary. The pandemic has everyone worried, and rightly so. We haven’t experienced anything of this magnitude in our lifetimes. Most of the constant updates are not positive. As I digested all of this, I thought about something else—gratitude.

Things are never perfect. I don’t have X, Y didn’t go as planned, Z was unfair, and so on. In the current environment, the list is longer than ever and that’s totally understandable. But there’s always something to be thankful for as well. I’ve been stuck in my house . . . not so great. I have a home to be stuck in . . . many people aren’t so fortunate.

Today I made a list of three things I’m grateful for (actually, I do this every day). The simple act of thinking about this and writing the list is powerful. It forces me to think about all the wonderful people and things in my life. Some days, I list things that are deep and weighty. Other times, it’s three of life’s little joys. Regardless, I take the time to notice and appreciate the good things in my life.

What are you grateful for?

Yesterday I spoke with a close friend about the current business landscape. He’s an avid investor and regularly trades his own stocks. Throughout the day, he checks the market’s performance, and he always knows how each of his positions is performing. The conversation turned to the market downturn and all the negative economic news. I asked him how his portfolio was doing, and to my surprise he said he didn’t know. I probed a little more and he admitted being too scared to look.

Reflecting on this, I realized I had once done something similar. Every morning at CCAW I was provided with and reviewed a series of reports and metrics. They detailed our current state (MTD revenue, cash position, A/P balance, etc.) and projected our future revenue and profitability. These reports were critical to my understanding of our current performance and where we would probably end up. If I didn’t like our trajectory, I could be proactive and initiate actions to change it.

We had a rough patch when we were constantly being hit with bad news. Week after week, macro things were happening that affected us negatively. After a while, I stopped reviewing the daily metrics and reports. I told myself I was too busy and tired, but the truth was that I didn’t want to see the data quantifying how bad things were.

I realized that I didn’t have the experience to navigate these rough waters on my own. I owed it to the team to do better, so I hired an advisor with experience in grappling with challenging business environments. One of the first things he asked me was how bad it was. I told him it was bad, but I didn’t have exact numbers because I hadn’t looked at the data. I expected him to chastise me, but he told me that was normal. (In fact, he had done something similar when one of his companies struggled.) It’s human nature, he said, to avoid bad news during difficult times. He encouraged me to start looking at the data regularly and discuss it with him. I did.

Takeaways:

• Don’t avoid – A bad situation doesn’t get better because you avoid it. Look at important information regularly so you can make better decisions.
• Data availability – If you don’t consistently have access to critical information, you can’t plot a course. Consider taking time to put processes in place to make that information available.
• Communication – Whether your numbers are good or bad, share the news. People will appreciate not being kept in the dark. You never know—someone may have an idea that could change things.

Have you ever found yourself avoiding during a difficult time? If so, what did you learn?

Today marked the end of my first week working exclusively from home. My normal routine has always included working at home part of the time, but until now I’ve worked mostly in an office.

Here are my takeaways from week 1:

• Physical activity – I like being active and usually work out in a gym. Since I couldn’t do that (thanks, coronavirus), I adjusted by taking up running outside (I hate running). Surprisingly, I enjoyed the fresh air and constantly changing scenery.
• Time – Not having to take time to “get ready” and then commute was refreshing. I had more productive time.
• Social interaction – Not being around people affected me initially, but video calls and meetings provided enough social interaction for me to feel normal.
• Meals – I typically have lunch with friends or colleagues a few times every week. I didn’t care for not being able to. A friend mentioned they had done a virtual lunch via FaceTime. I haven’t tried it, but I may if this becomes the new norm.
• Focus – There are distractions at home, so I have to make more of an effort to focus on work.
• Separation – Traveling from my office to my home has always helped me shift my mindset from work to my personal life. Now, I must create that separation within my home. Having a dedicated home office has been helpful.

During this first week, anyway, working from home all the time hasn’t been as bad as I imagined. I’ve learned what I need in order to feel normal, and I look for alternatives that work in the current environment. I pay attention when people mention what they’re doing to help their teams adjust to working from home (for example, video happy hours and breakroom channels in Slack). I can't control this situation, but I can make the best of it. I plan to learn from this, adjust as necessary and share my experience with others.

Today I participated in a conversation among successful entrepreneurs in a variety of industries about COVID-19’s impact on businesses. COVID-19 is bringing crisis to most companies.

As we talked, I reflected on a perfect storm in my past. Macro political changes were negatively affecting my business, a member of my immediate family had an unexpected life-threatening medical situation, and I was facing personal headwinds with the potential to upend my private life. It was not a fun time. The stakes were incredibly high across the board. One bad decision and life could spiral out of control quickly. I was stressed, to say the least.

I learned things then that I shared today:

• 80-year-old’s lens – Fifty years from now, when I’m in a rocking chair telling my story, what will matter most? Relationships, not accolades or wealth. I needed to align my current actions with this future perspective.
• Priorities – I’m only human. My time and energy are limited, and I can’t be effective in every domain at once. Viewing things through the lens of my elderly self, I prioritized the headwinds pushing at me and put family first. I got comfortable with the idea that other balls would drop and things would get ugly before they would get better.
• Communication – I couldn’t immediately focus on lower-priority headwinds, and there were people I cared about who would be affected by that. I clearly explained my thoughts to them. Some agreed with my priorities and appreciated my honesty. Others were extremely upset. I made sure they all knew what my top priority was, how I would be allocating my energy, and how I came to that decision.
• Focus on the light – I focused on the light at the end of the tunnel, not the darkness of the tunnel I was in. I figured that once I was out of the tunnel, I’d have plenty of time to reflect on why I’d been in it.
• Experienced advisors – I pulled together an informal group of people I respected who had experience in areas in which I was inexperienced (I even sought out and paid one person). I asked them to share their experiences with me and incorporated them into my decision making.
• Emotional control – Emotionally, I was riding a rollercoaster. But I was purposeful and made sure my emotions didn’t dictate my decision-making, my actions, or my words. I took time to talk through my decisions with people I trusted and asked them about my blind spots before I took action.

Did everything turn out perfect? No. Was the process painful? Yup. Could I have done some things better? Absolutely.

In the end, it all worked out. It took a while, but looking back, I’m happy I addressed each headwind separately. The passage of time with no action on some of these problems made them worse in the short-term. But what I would have gained from trying to solve them all simultaneously would have been outweighed by the toll it would have taken on me and the people around me. I don’t think this approach would work for everyone or every situation, but it worked for me in that perfect storm.

If you find yourself buffeted by a perfect storm (and you will if you’re an entrepreneur long enough), take time to think. Navigate it your way—not someone else’s way—consistently with your ethics and morals.

Today I had a conversation with a friend and fellow founder who’s active in the Atlanta start-up community. We shared our views on the macro landscape and what it means for the entrepreneurial community locally and nationally. Here are some of our takeaways:

• Communication – Founders should communicate often with their teams, investors, banks, and partners. If you don’t have all the answers, communicate what you do know. There’s nothing worse than being in the dark, at risk of being blindsided, during a time of crisis.
• Capital – Capital will be less abundant. I assume that banks will honor previously extended credit, but they probably will be reluctant to extend new credit. Venture capitalists are also likely to pull back in the short term until it’s clear how (IPO, M&A, etc.) and at what valuation they can exit their investments and return capital to LPs.
• Delayed closings – Venture capital deal closings could be affected if LPs default on capital calls. If this occurs en masse (which I believe is unlikely), VC deal activity will slow.
• Contingency plan – Start working on a plan and define the thresholds that will trigger it. It’s better to have a plan and not need it than be caught without one.
• Experience – The last economic downturn was more than a decade ago. If you didn’t experience it, seek out entrepreneurs who survived it and learn from them.
• Cash is king – Monitor your balance daily.
• Accounts receivables – Know who owes you, how much they owe, and when their payment is due. Reach out to each customer with a past-due account to gauge their ability to pay.

The business landscape is changing at an unprecedented pace. I encourage entrepreneurs to be proactive. If you’re an entrepreneur who lived through the last downturn and you have bandwidth, I encourage you to reach out to other entrepreneurs. Sharing your experience or just lending a listening ear could change someone’s trajectory.

Today I met with an entrepreneur who’s starting a SaaS company that will automate business processes for small and medium-sized businesses. He’s considering raising venture capital to build the technology, so my experience developing CCAW’s technology without raising capital interested him. Bootstrapping admittedly made it ten times more challenging. Here are some of the things I shared:

• Platform as a service (PaaS) – We couldn’t afford to develop or maintain the infrastructure underlying our applications, so we used a PaaS provider. It worked perfectly. One major downside was not owning 100% of our intellectual property.
• Spaghetti code – A high-profile investor recently told me that most early-stage companies he’s invested in were built on spaghetti code that wasn’t improved until later financing rounds. Duct tape and bubble gum are OK early on, when technical perfection is unreachable.
• Technical wisdom – I’m not technical by training, so bringing in a senior technical person was a game-changer. I could describe how I envisioned our system working and rely on them to make it happen.
• Technology wasn’t our product – Our revenue was generated from sales of physical products. With our technology, we consistently sold ever-larger quantities of them. If our revenue had come from selling technology, we might have chosen a different approach.
• Testing – We tested things manually to gain clarity about what exactly our engineers needed to build. Test before committing tons of engineering resources (if possible).

This approach worked for us and allowed CCAW to scale. Every business must forge its own path but whatever direction is chosen, technology costs have plummeted so much in recent years that more can be done with a fraction of the capital. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Salesforce are just a few of the cost-effective options available. I encourage new entrepreneurs to think creatively about how they build their technology.

As I write this, the coronavirus pandemic is forcing companies to rethink how their employees work. They must embrace the work-from-home option like never before. I managed a mixed team of remote and in-office workers at CCAW, so I thought it might be helpful to share what I learned:

• Right person in the right seat – This is important wherever the seat is located, but it carries extra weight for team members who work from home. Make sure the person you hire is a good fit for the job.
• Experience – Seasoned team members tend to do better in remote roles. They often (but not always) need less hand-holding to work productively.
• Video communication – You can never replace face-to-face conversation, but video tools like Zoom are the next best thing.
• Cadence – Weekly or even daily team stand-ups keep information flowing and help resolve issues quickly.
• One-on-one meetings – Regular meetings with each remote worker are critical. They give the team member a chance to say what they’re thinking (good or bad) and connect personally with their manager. We did our meetings weekly.
• Alignment – Communicating what’s going on with the company is difficult. We published dashboards displaying key performance indicators (KPIs). We then discussed the KPIs during our regular meetings.
• Chat – Tools like Slack that allow you to create rooms or channels are great for communication. People like sending quick messages instead of emails.
• Visibility – Knowing who’s working will help you set expectations for responsiveness by remote team members. Tools like TSheets can help.  

It’s hard to replace the in-office experience, but there are things you can do to make everyone feel welcome and be productive. When done well, remote work raises team morale in a big way.