The Doldrums
Happy Sunday!
I’m trying something a bit different with this week’s update. Let me know your thoughts …
☝️ But first … if you’re new here and find this stuff interesting, subscribe below! I send one email weekly, and you can unsubscribe if you don’t like it.
This week at Bullpen …
We made great strides towards the launch of community features in our web app … events, deals, profile management, etc
Folks are still asking about our job board, which has me thinking about how we can bring it back in some capacity
We’re considering pivoting away from “freelancer” as a noun that we use for our talent
Our newsletter, “The Weekly Warm-Up” exploded with more than 50 new subscribers
Our new sales hire is starting to run calls on his own (3 weeks from his start date)
I’m becoming more comfortable coaching my team members, which is a bigger use of my time as we grow the team
The start of this year has been full of infrastructure improvements. We’ve improved how we acquire leads, polished our sales process, and added processes to improve the success rate of our client/talent connections.
However, it feels like we’re in the doldrums. Going along with the boating theme … we’ve grown the capacity of our sails and streamlined the design of our hull, but it still feels like we’re not moving very fast.
As a founder, it’s tempting to only talk about the good stuff. Behind the scenes, starting a business is full of ups and downs. Some weeks you feel like you’re riding an amazing wave. Other weeks make you feel like the whole business is spinning out of control. In my case, this week has just felt like we’re stuck.
My pontification …
As an entrepreneur, having a hobby that is different from my day job has been critical for my mental health. I’ve spent the past few months learning how to make bread. This week, I made my first sourdough loaf. There is something powerful that happens in you when you use your hands to create.
One of my fellow commercial real estate content creators hit pause this week. He was very active on LinkedIn and had a growing newsletter - then he burnt out. I’ve found that writing continually about one niche is very tiring. You’ll see in my content that it ebbs and flows. The content that most energizes me is sometimes not at all related to commercial real estate … bread making, regenerative farming, cooking, exercise, etc. I write about it all, and it keeps me sane. Stay curious.
That’s all for this week! Let me know what you think of this new format.
✌️📤
Tyler
Founder @ Bullpen