Real Talk: Building in Public

What is "building in public"? Well, it's the attempt for Indie Hackers, bootstrappers, and startup founders to give something back. They are willing to be a bit vulnerable and share, publicly, what goes on behind the scenes - warts and all.

Which - by the way - is not easy at all! The premise is to be transparent, vulnerable, open and willing. And by the very nature of a lot of startup founders - we're prone to working in silo keeping things as stealth-like as possible. Mainly due to the innate fear of someone swooping in and nicking our well-thought-out business idea, succeeding at launch, and leaving us crying in the corner with nothing!

It's a tough game to be all vulnerable and open, when that is not who you are by nature. However, how else will peers know what you're going through, or how to help you out?

Building in Public is also a brilliant way for some of us to skip the pain points of "learning and testing" some things, instead seeing what didn't work for others and moving straight on with something better.

So - here goes. Here's a snapshot of my life over the past week-to-ten-days - take what resonates and leave the rest!

• First round interview with Tech4Eva - FemTech specific accelerator. 15 mins, 5 panel interviewers, went well. Fingers crossed for second round.
• Updated website copy and home landing page - eyes will be on website as applications in for a few accelerators and want to portray realistically what Fit Mama is doing today and what tomorrow looks like too. Took the invaluable advice from Serban Georgescu (had an amazing 60 mins office hours with him last month), to add focus on B2B. Here's the new landing page and click through page. The copy on the 30 Day Plan page was altered from amazing feedback from Arnold Flores - here's access to the Loom he sent me. More to be done on here - it's a WIP. Also a massive shout out to Georgie Sayles who took time out of her busy day to give me some key pointers on copy, especially for landing pages and B2B content.
• Set up and registered a self-employed personal training business in France - where I'm currently residing. Needed to do this so that I can still do personal training as "Michelle Caira Personal Trainer" - for day-to-day income.
• Completed a Techstars accelerator application at the eleventh hour - literally. Was back-to-back and was almost about to forgo applying, but applied. The application was good - I had already created a google page doc called "fundraising notes" a couple of months ago - adding to it every time I need to. The document has everything from "describe your business in 250 words or less" through to cold emailing letter templates. I also have my LinkedIn and Twitter handles there. The point is that I'm simply doing a copy/paste job for a lot of things I'm applying for or meetings I'm involved in. Keeps the process very lean and quick. The TS application was done at the end of a very long day - and to be honest I was looking scraggy and tired. I had promised my son a movie night - and had to toss up that or doing a 60 second intro video for TS. Let's get real: the 60 sec video is never 60 secs of your time - there's prep and shooting and loading and posting. So, I chatted to my son - any chance you want to help me do the video shoot instead of watching a film? Yeah, okay mum. At 9pm I jumped back into the shower - so that I could properly blow-dry my hair, slapped on minimum makeup, then got ready to film the intro video with just a lamp as light. We don't, yet, have a main light in the apartment and no, I don't have a social media spotlight either! Here's the video: Techstars Intro to the Founding Team The rest of the app was completed by 10.30pm - and then I switched off my work for the day.
• 24 hours later - I received an email inviting me through to the round one interviews!!!
• Applied for another accelerator - this time through the Canadian Trade Commission program. It's perfect for Fit Mama - but honestly, I felt awful applying for it. This time the application process really drilled down on revenue and traction - and as a startup, bootstrapping, and in the mvp zone - these are not kind questions. There is nowhere to hide your performance - and to be honest, I'd be surprised if I got Fit Mama through to the first round. I must say - love the program and praying for it, but impostor syndrome kicked in big style during this app.
• Attended a brilliant Financial Model workshop with the fantastic Paul Bianco, Graphite Financial, which went through what a startup financial deck could look like, where the figures come from, and how to work through projections when you raise a round. A financial model is already in the Fit Mama Data Room - helped enormously by Andy Edwards (Treasurer of Fit Mama) - and as an ex-corporate banker it is not something I have found difficult to create - however, this workshop was really great to add in some aspects of the funding and spending cycle, runways, and what VCs will be looking for.
• Attended two members-only Women of Wearables meetings - as part of "give, give, get" (Give, Give, Get is my method in life. I believe that if you give first, then give again, you will eventually get. Go into anything with a give mentality and eventually someone will give to you. By giving first you're attracting the same kind of people - who will give back. It works for me. I'm happy to give my time, energy, input, likes/comments/shares, and collabs too. I've sent all my seed investor spreadsheets to other femtech founders, I'm not greedy! I've added clients to my private groups for free, as I know they're stretched financially. I've given free sessions and advice to hundreds. But I also get a lot back. This is the currency of GGG. Try it.) I find these meetings very worthwhile. To mix and mingle with fellow founders - in the same industry - and see what everyone is doing, in a safe and collaborative environment. Highly recommend their membership!
• Joined a Boston based startup networking meetup (zoom) a few months ago (Venture Cafe) - and love it! It's a weekly half hour (7.30pm my time) of saying hi and helping out any peers, networking, and supporting each other. After the 30 mins, I then went on to join the workshops on YouTube, email subject lines, and further networking. These sessions might cover things you already know - but I always find one or two (or more!) golden nuggets and really find it a worthwhile use of my evening. The sessions finished by around 10pm, my time. Shout out to the wonderful Shaheen for the warm welcome!
• Toyed with an idea of a Co-op Bench-to-Play Founder Team - chatted it through with Kelly Vero via LI messages (a WoW connection) - and bit the bullet! Posted a rough idea of my idea... to see if there are any others other there that fancied putting their skills to use with Fit Mama, in exchange for equity and profit share. Not quite just a "sweat-equity" deal, and not a co-founder shout out either. A new way to work and a new way to get a startup launched and out to market was what I was thinking. Thanks to Kelly, Tuni Schartner, Joel Peterson, and my wider network - I have five meetings scheduled with people who are keen to hear more - and happy to help! The power of networking!
• Attended an Intro to NFTs last night - the SLACK channel was buzzing, the Zoom invite restricted, and the guests... amazing! So, dialed in at 7pm and left at 11.30pm when it finished up... absolutely amazing sessions, and learning about things I cannot even describe. I felt like an old granny listening to kids discussing the big world wide web... and not knowing quite what they were on about... but a more supportive community than I imagined jumped in with links to articles, blogs, and videos to explain exactly what AR NFTs on the blockchain were all about. (Please God, don't ask me anything though!!).
• Finally paid an installment towards an outstanding invoice from three years ago. No joke. Just simply never had the funds to even pay a penny towards it, all this time, but finally managed to carve out some funds and started to make this right. There are other, small, invoices outstanding - forever pinging in my head - but for now, this was a big win, no matter how small the payment was!
• Signed up an old client who took a break from personal training (for personal reasons), on a 24 week program! This is an amazing win for me - a returning client, and a long-term personal training plan in place. All via Zoom and Telegram for delivery.
• Had numerous live Fit Mama zoom workouts with clients around the globe - including a new client in the East Coast - who joined her first session yesterday! Great to have her join in. Won this client via Eventbrite. You can sign up here for sessions throughout April!
• Got an email through to say that I'd been nominated through Women of Influence and RBC as a female entrepreneur. This is the third year in a row and I was keen to find out who had nominated me - emailed the team and got a great surprise. Love that this happened and really feel that nominations like this go a long way!
• Son: off school for three weeks as France goes into the third CV19 wave. But, we're at a great stage just now. He's almost ten, we live in a small, safe French town, he has friends who live 50m away from our apartment. And he has a basketball court and football pitch (hybrid/flex space) 100m from our front door. He's at an age where he can go out for 45 mins at a time and just check in with me. Life five years ago - balancing a business and a small child - was radically different to today. Even a couple of years ago in Vancouver it was different. Today I'm able to helicopter parent on busy days - and I also can flex my days. Whilst yesterday I was "working" until 11.30pm, I didn't start my day until 2pm... giving me and my son the whole morning together plus an undisturbed lunch.
• I work asynchronously every day. I am not a morning person, so rarely schedule anything in the morning - unless it's action-based (personal training sessions). I am also single - in every way - so I can easily work in the evenings, when I'm at my most productive, without upsetting a personal relationship. It also allows me to spend valuable time with my son. Walks, basketball court, skateboard park - these are all things we can do together, in daylight hours, without it impacting on my work schedule.

But what about the things that went wrong. Yeah, building in public does require to tell you about the not-so-great things. Here we go:

• Got a decline from NextView Ventures for their accelerator. This one stung for a minute as I really thought there was great alignment in what they're doing and what Fit Mama is all about. But the decline came through.
• Had to toss up working on the Techstars application versus watching a movie with my son. This happens more often than not - the cost of progressing with something for Fit Mama versus doing something with my son. The reality is that I'm a single mum and a solo founder. Every single meal in my home is prepared and cooked by me. I do the dishes, housework, cleaning, shopping, washing... but my son pulls his weight with things appropriate for his age. We make a very good team, and he does understand my focus on Fit Mama. We have three days per week together when he doesn't have school - and I can honestly say that Saturdays and Sundays I do not touch my work. I'm getting better at parenting as the years go on - and I'm flowing with work/life much better.
• There's very little self-care going on... I'm not dating or meeting up with friends (hello Covid!!), or getting massages or long baths. I am getting an hour every night of some Netflix, and I am good at keeping up with friends on Telegram chats - or zooms. But carving out an actual life for me needs to happen soon!
• My girl pup started her first season. She's clinging, dripping spots of blood (although she's a tidy girl), and I was not expecting this so soon! Great educational time for me and my son though - nothing like discussing your dog's menstrual cycle to ramp up the sex education!
• I'm suffering badly with chronic hay fever. It's awful and really impacts my brain clarity. This was to blame for my nervous application for the Canadian Trade Commission accelerator. I was really so poorly and not concentrating very well. Sneezing constantly and eyes wringing. Awful
• I dropped the ball with my Techstars/Kauffman Spring VC cohort - we're in week three of the course and I couldn't face doing the homework. It was on cap tables, and one look at it sent me into despair. I'm the team leader of my team - so felt like I'd let them all down with my lack of submission - but sometimes you need to fail. And this was it!
• A client dropped out of the Telegram group I have for Fit Mama. I was initially a bit sad, but then took it to mean that she just didn't need or want to be in the group. Perhaps she was looking for something more or different. She was a non-paying client, so no hit to the bottom line, but still don't like that churn - I rarely get any churn with Fit Mama, and I really do notice if even one client drops off the radar!
• Discovered that due to inactivity, my business account had been automatically closed. OMG! Yes, any income from Fit Mama is collected by either Stripe or PayPal, and nothing was touching the actual bank account (is there a need these days for a business account?) so RBC automatically closed it down. I spent an hour on the phone with my business manager, in Vancouver, so another evening call for me, to see what we can do to resurrect this. As an ex-banker, I must say that I find it bizarre that a closure would happen. I was expecting an email or call to nudge me - before automatically closing, but that's obviously not the way RBC do things. Fair enough.

So - it's a busy time for me, Fit Mama and my family. I'm through the accelerator application stages, and now onto business angel funding and following through on my Bench-to-Play concept (which may remove the need for any preseed funding round).

It's so easy to show the good every day - in posts and social media - but I think it's better to put forward the reality too. Here's what it takes to just get a startup moving and to balance that with a family.

Solo founders - anyone who's reading this - feel free to reach out and connect. Creating a safe peer-community is so badly needed! And keep going - one baby step at a time!

Investors - please never doubt the commitment startup solo founders have. They are living and breathing their businesses every single day. Give them a chance and take that zoom meeting!

Single mums - you've got this!! You're absolutely knackered, I get it, but you're also winning at life. It might feel like you never catch a break, but trust me, your kids are watching and they think you're the best mum ever!

Until next time... Thanks for reading and supporting and being a big part of my growth and journey.

Love, Michelle

ps. in the time I've written this post, two people from the buzzing SLACK last night have reached out and asked for my investor deck - they're seed investors!! Wish me luck!

Michelle Caira is the Founder and CEO of Fit Mama Fitness Inc , a community contributor at Thrive Global and a certified Master Personal Trainer. Michelle launched Fit Mama, a digital platform for mothers, in 2018. Its goal is to equip women with the fitness, nutrition and mental wellness solutions and tools they need to thrive - at home and returning to the workplace. Passionate about women in business, Michelle is an entrepreneur with a global vision, and committed to help create a world where women thrive, regardless of any and all other factors.

Here are some photos from the past week!