In a candid discussion, Jim Launch CEO reflects on recent entrepreneurial mistakes and insights gained while leading his business. He emphasizes the danger of detaching too much from operations, revealing that a lack of awareness of departmental issues is a red flag for being overly distant. He shares the costly lesson of overhiring based on inaccurate expectations of demand, which led to unnecessary layoffs despite high revenue. He also highlights misconceptions about cold traffic behavior, noting the challenge of breaking multiple customer beliefs to sell a new product. Additionally, he stresses the importance of hiring only when necessary and the pitfalls of miscommunicating new initiatives to his community, such as the 'hybrid' model, which caused confusion among gym owners. The CEO concludes by acknowledging the inherent nature of making mistakes in decision-making and the human resistance to change, while teasing exciting future releases for his company.
Hello everyone. Hope you're having an amazing lunch on this fantastic Thursday. I have had this one on my mind for a super long time and hopefully it comes out in a series of coherent thoughts.
This quote sets the stage for the discussion, where Jim expresses his intention to share his thoughts and experiences in a coherent manner.
But I was sharing the greatest lessons and failures that I've had as Jim launch CEO since we have started.
Jim introduces the topic of his talk, which centers around the key lessons and failures he has experienced as the CEO of Gym Launch.
So the first mistake, well, I've made many, many mistakes, but I'll just do the last twelve months.
Jim admits to making numerous mistakes, but chooses to focus on the ones from the last twelve months.
And so starting a year ago, one of the first mistakes that I made is I stepped too far away from gym launch and so I stepped too far above.
Jim acknowledges that distancing himself too much from the business was a significant error.
And so that has become my litmus test for understanding where I'm getting too far away in the business is if I don't know what's wrong with it, then it means I'm too far.
Jim shares his personal litmus test for gauging his level of detachment from the business, which is based on his awareness of problems.
That mistake led to us overhring in January. And so we got our team up to 130 people in January, and we currently have 85.
Jim connects his detachment to the mistake of overhiring, which resulted in an inflated team size that was later reduced.
And so that kind of leads to the second problem or mistake that I made, was I expected cold traffic to act the same way as warm traffic with regards to an offer.
Jim discusses his second mistake, which was misjudging the behavior of cold traffic in comparison to warm traffic when it came to accepting offers.
"was two beliefs that needed to be broken, not one. And so whenever you sell a new offer, you always want the opportunity to have one belief that needs to be broken. Ideally, you have attractors and beliefs that need to be broken. Right. Ideally, you have multiple attractors and only one belief."
This quote emphasizes the ideal scenario for selling a new offer, which is to have several positive attractors and only one negative belief that needs to be changed.
"This one had multiple attractors, but multiple beliefs need to be broken. That was ultimately the reason it didn't work."
Jim explains that the failure of the offer was due to the complexity of having to change multiple customer beliefs, which is not ideal for a successful launch.
"And so I hired a sales team, I hired customer service team to fulfill what I believed was going to be the increase in demand and it didn't happen."
Jim discusses his preemptive hiring decision based on expected demand, which did not occur as planned.
"And so what ended up happening is I had to cut all these people because they didn't have anything to do, right?"
This quote highlights the consequences of hiring too many employees prematurely, leading to layoffs when the anticipated demand did not come to fruition.
"Only hire when it hurts, right? You want to wait until the capacity exceeds your current ability to utilize."
Jim shares a lesson learned from his experience, advising that businesses should hire only when the workload exceeds the current team's capacity to manage effectively.
"Everyone thinks that they work really hard, but most people can work more, right?"
Jim reflects on the common human perception of hard work and the reality that many employees have the capacity to handle more work than they realize.
"We now have a staff of five doing the exact same work. Five, right. Doing the same work. And based on the calculations we have, we still have 30 or 40% capacity with that team."
This quote demonstrates how a smaller team can be just as effective as a larger one, suggesting that businesses might not need to hire as many people as they initially think.
"I want to have an amazing experience for everyone who comes in, so we can anticipate it, be ahead and give it. Like I said, give an amazing experience. And that wasn't the case. We didn't need to."
Jim explains his desire to exceed customer expectations by preparing for high demand, which in hindsight was unnecessary.
"Real quick, guys, you guys already know that I don't run any ads on this, and I don't sell anything. And so the only ask that I can ever have of you guys is that you help me spread the word so we can help more entrepreneurs make more money, feed their families, make better products, and have better experiences for their employees and customers."
The host explains the ad-free and product-free nature of the podcast and requests listeners to help spread the word to support the entrepreneurial community.
"Is if you can rate and review and share this podcast."
"So the single thing that I ask you to do is you can just leave a review."
"It would mean the absolute world to me."
These quotes are part of the hosts' call to action, emphasizing the importance of listener support through ratings, reviews, and sharing to help the podcast grow and assist more entrepreneurs.
"I think that the next mistake that I made was actually I was listening to a small base of customers that wanted more things... But people wanted things that wanted fewer, things that were deeper, if that made sense."
This quote highlights the misalignment between Jim's focus on expanding offerings based on a minority's feedback and the majority's desire for refined existing products. It underscores the importance of accurately gauging customer needs.
"I failed to articulate it well to my existing community of gym lords... But I did not communicate that well to my existing tribe."
Jim's quote reveals the communication gap between his vision for the 'hybrid' model and the perception of his gym owner community. It shows the importance of clear messaging to ensure community support for new initiatives.
"It's fucking accountability. It's all this, right? You just put a different wrapper on it."
This quote illustrates how the essence of the 'hybrid' model was lost due to complex branding, emphasizing the need for straightforward communication that resonates with the target audience.
"The lesson I learned when we overhired was that you need to hire when it hurts... And usually people always have more capacity than you think they do and even than they think they do, right?"
Jim's quote reflects on the overhiring mistake, teaching him that hiring should be done conservatively and based on actual need, not anticipation. It also touches on the untapped potential in existing team members.
"a players, which was an inadvertent benefit of having that large influx..."
"One single belief that needs to be broken. When there are multiple beliefs, the sale becomes significantly harder..."
"If I had just said, hey, guys, we're launching this new program, all it is is an additional level of service on top of what you already do at your gym. And we're calling it accountability..."
"I just don't know what I would need to do to someone. I'm not going to start. Literally all I do is help gyms."
"And the thing is that especially when you have decisions to make, you don't know what the right answer is. And you never will know what would have happened if you had done it the other way."
"But I have realized now that humans hate change. No matter how well I sell it, everyone fucking hates change."
"The next two release calls are going to be fucking epic. I'm so pumped."
"But anyways, thank you to all the hybrid crushers. I have a little testimonials I'm excited to launch for those of you who have been implementing it."