Happy New Years Eve (6)

In just under a week, Broke Ass Founder has 50 subscribers.

Hold shit. Unexpected.

With very little fanfare or publicity, my network has once again proven to be my most coveted asset.

I may be broke in bank account, but I’m rich in homies.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy this weeks issue.

Guilty Party

I broke down today.

My 12-year old daughter sent this to me when she woke up.

I was already depleted after a long night of insomnia and I just lost it.

Emotions came gushing out and I felt like I just watched The Green Mile, Rudy, and E.T. all in a row.

My guilt and anxiety about providing for my family has been building for months, leading to an anxious holiday season where I desperately wanted to be present and in the moment for my family, but no matter how hard I tried, my mind crept back to despair.

Fuck me.

Ever since I divorced during the pandemic (I think there is a special club for that), I’ve had this wild need to over compensate for my kids.

After all, there was a high likely hood that me getting divorced during their elementary school age was likely going to lead to my daughters dancing on the pole and my son growing a soul patch and smelling like patchouli.

So it was a mad dash of working my ass off when they were in school or at their mom’s so that way I could be fully devoted to them when I had them.

But guess what?

That meant 5am days and 10pm nights catching up on my business while they were in bed, because as a solopreneur, the business isn’t going to wait around for office hours.

So you have some breaks. Business builds.

Problem now is I have to fit in a 4pm call right after you pick up the kids, and that time I promised for them is eaten up by a client I have been chasing for months.

So they are watching themselves while I try to close a deal I need and in the back of my mind I just feel shitty.

From there it just compounds.

As a founder:

You feel guilty not working on the business when you are with the kids.

You feel guilty for not spending time with the kids when working on the business.

Again, totally shitty to be trapped in a perpetual state of guilt and pressure.

So seeing the text from Lily really hit hard.

I’ve been working harder than ever to try and save the business. Fucking hours.

Writing my content at 11pm.

Watching Adobe Express tutorials while on the can.

Trying my 15th calibration of a value prop while driving at night.

In my head, I want to be able to say that I might be sacrificing my mental well being and my quality time with my kiddos, but it’s worth it because I have security for them.

But when you don’t have revenue that is reflective of the output, that stench of failure won’t escape. It’s an even worse smell than Axe body spray.

I know Lily, and all five of my kids don’t care about money. I really don’t either.

It’s the security of being able to know I can spend uninterrupted quality time in my head that revenue provides to me.

Seeing that she appreciates everything I do hits hard and in the end, it should be enough.

Right?

Tools I Might Spend Money On

I have to be notoriously cheap on the tools I use for my business. $50 here, $75 there adds up really quickly on a shoestring budget.

However, one tool I have been seeing validity in spending money on is Kondo.

I basically live and die by my LinkedIn inbox. I managed candidate, client, and prospect conversations all by the stupid little star feature. As a result, my inbox is a total shit show.

Enter Kondo.

I had a late night demo with founder Mitchell Tan last month. It was pretty evident by his mad scientist enthusiasm that he was really intent on his goal of delivering a zero inbox for your LinkedIn profile.

Pretty cool to be able to organize my messages by folders, set follow up reminders, and archive spam messages.

I ended up not renewing my free trial, not from a satisfaction or use case perspective, but merely a cost matter. I will say they are reasonably priced for what they offer, I just have to put them through the Broke-Ass acceptance criteria.

Check them out. Early stage. Passionate founder. Strong use case.

(Kondo is not a paid sponsor…)

Love you all 💙.

-T

Vibe of the Week

What runs through my head as I write this weeks issue.