Today, I sat down in the morning and was happy for full 8 minutes after 10 months of work.
Of course, product at Cyrkl is not done. Not by far. Never will be. But finally, I have a feeling that all puzzles I need to have are coming together for the minimal product.
- We measure almost everything I need to measure. Across many channels, daily, weekly, monthly, …
- The platform is stable and basically usable. When people come, they are not disappointed as they were in November.
- I am proud of my team. The atmosphere is good, Radical Focus rhythm in place, goals are quite clear, monthly sales KPIs are being installed, I can already see we may switch to OKRs as well in Q1 …
- We analyzed key data, talked to tens of people, reviewed competition, market, considered available business models given our runway and ambitions … and formulated a product vision that I am excited about and is executable from day one.
- Pilot of a new service called Industry Database based on customer insights is already running, our data team not only had data ready but provided much-faster online interface using slicers via Excel.
- We analyzed tech debt, defined backlog, set a limit and are cutting it down using 20 % capacity in each sprint.
- We have sales materials ready in a very good shape thanks to in-house universal designer; we have a policy in place to launch one new significant benefit for our Cyrkl Pro subscription each month to continuously increase its attractiveness.
I considered all this and was happy.
Then standup started, phones were ringing, shit was falling down … the usual stuff, you know that.
There is a difference between happiness and fulfillment. Happiness is this rare moment of joy. Fulfillment is this feeling deep down that the work (or life in general) is worthwhile.
(It is me on the picture, explaining the new vision and the research behind this to investors last week. We got a go that prolonged our runway.)
