Update _posts/2017-08-13-fuck-up-early-and-often.md (via Pages CMS)

_posts/2017-08-13-fuck-up-early-and-often.md

@@ -2,17 +2,17 @@
 title: Fuck up early and often
 layout: post
 comments: true
-description: Fucking up regularly while growing my company made more resilient and business savvy.
+description: Fucking up regularly while growing my company made more resilient
+  and business savvy.
 image: /files/ronan-jsconf.jpg
 ---
-
 I was asked a few weeks ago to share my experience at [Fuckup Nights Shanghai](https://fuckupnights.com/event/fuckup-nights-shanghai/).
 
 Problem is: I've fucked up so many times since I arrived in China in 2005, I struggled to pick any specific anecdote. I decided to not choose and simply tell the many ways I fucked up on my way to creating and growing my company, [Wiredcraft](https://wiredcraft.com).
 
 ## Fuck up #1: Working for the wrong people
 
-<img src='/files/bad-boss.gif' width='100%'/>
+![](/files/bad-boss.gif)
 
 Until 2009, I was the MD of a Canadian digital agency. We had some interesting clients, plenty of demand and went from 5 to 20 in about a year.
 
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ So I started to freelance.
 
 ## Fuck up #2: Starting my own business
 
-<img src='/files/like-a-boss.gif' width='100%'/>
+![](/files/like-a-boss.gif)
 
 Freelancing was going well and about 2 months in I had managed to round up a couple people working out of my living room (“the office”).
 
@@ -42,23 +42,26 @@ I had no idea what I was doing and it’s amazing I didn’t burst in flames bac
 
 ## Fuck up #3: Breaking our business model
 
-<img src='/files/wave.gif' width='100%'/>
+![](/files/wave.gif)
 
 We had been using a popular PHP framework and had created a nice niche for ourselves. We had happy customers, a good reputation within this niche and even received a couple acquisition offers.
 
 That’s about when I had the dumb idea to move entirely away from our current stack and start using completely new and unproven technology (Node.js).
 
 While satisfying (and confusing) on an engineering level, this brought a lot of problems to our company;
 
-- We spent a ton of resources retraining our whole team,
-- We sunk even more time figuring out things with an unproven technology,
-- Most important of all, we struggled to advertise ourself. Nobody was looking for the expertise we were developing.
+*   We spent a ton of resources retraining our whole team,
+
+*   We sunk even more time figuring out things with an unproven technology,
+
+*   Most important of all, we struggled to advertise ourself. Nobody was looking for the expertise we were developing.
+
 
 This wasn’t happy time: we were struggling to find clients or had no idea how to market our services. This effectively nearly killed our entire sales channel.
 
 ## Fuck up #4: Letting a client fuck us over
 
-<img src='/files/the-office-no.gif' width='100%'/>
+![](/files/the-office-no.gif)
 
 In 2010, we started working for non-profits and international development clients. Think World Bank, United Nations etc.
 
@@ -74,15 +77,20 @@ It got so bad that I had to simply walk away without getting paid. At some point
 
 ## Fuck up #5: Losing focus
 
-<img src='/files/mexican-hat.gif' width='100%'/>
+![](/files/mexican-hat.gif)
 
 For close to 3 years, I and a few other folks on my team, spent a ton of time trying to create SaaS products. We probably made all the mistakes that you could think of. For the sake of brevity:
 
-- We over-engineered,
-- We waited too long to launch, while others successfully took over the market,
-- We under marketed ("If you build it, they will come"),
-- We took too long to cut our losses and grew attached to zombie projects,
-- …
+*   We over-engineered,
+
+*   We waited too long to launch, while others successfully took over the market,
+
+*   We under marketed ("If you build it, they will come"),
+
+*   We took too long to cut our losses and grew attached to zombie projects,
+
+*   …
+
 
 But most important of all, we were trying to build a couple products AND running a consulting business. We didn’t ace either of these.
 
@@ -94,7 +102,7 @@ We went through the whole process; created a C-corp, prepared shares, ran due di
 
 ## Fuck up #6: Breaking our business model, again
 
-<img src='/files/jericho-missile.gif' width='100%'/>
+![](/files/jericho-missile.gif)
 
 Yes: I’m a moron.
 
@@ -106,18 +114,21 @@ Once again, we had no idea how to advertise ourselves, where to find our clients
 
 ## Lessons
 
-<img src='/files/cat-piano.gif' width='100%'/>
+![](/files/cat-piano.gif)
 
 The list is much longer ; just last year I lost 60k USD on a new office by fucking up on the contract, and ending up with a landlord going bankrupt along with our deposit.
 
 But more than successes, failure and your resilience to it is what defines you as an entrepreneur.
 
 Keep in mind the following;
 
-- Most advices people will give you are misguided, inadequate or biased.
-- You’ll most likely disregard the advices they’ll give you anyway.
-- Mostly, you’ll fuck up on your own. And you’ll get to a point where you’re comfortable fucking up and dealing with it. The trick, I think is to fuck up as quickly as possible and moving on to the next opportunity for a fuck up.
+*   Most advices people will give you are misguided, inadequate or biased.
+
+*   You’ll most likely disregard the advices they’ll give you anyway.
+
+*   Mostly, you’ll fuck up on your own. And you’ll get to a point where you’re comfortable fucking up and dealing with it. The trick, I think is to fuck up as quickly as possible and moving on to the next opportunity for a fuck up.
+
 
 **Honestly; stop going to startup events in hope that you’ll become better or more successful. Just go fuck up like a man (or a woman) and figure it out like the rest of us do; by doing**.
 
-*You can [find my slides online](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e4Y2btCwLRr2UoHw_PdH_rVakpF5oDNvnKYTkNJBIzU/edit?usp=sharing).*
+_You can_ [_find my slides online_](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1e4Y2btCwLRr2UoHw_PdH_rVakpF5oDNvnKYTkNJBIzU/edit?usp=sharing)_._