The tl;dr highlight version of this past quarter is:
· I got SMILE eye surgery (best decision ever)
· Left Bali and moved to Phnom Penh
· Video Husky has a new website and grew 70% revenue wise compared to last quarter
· Studied 143 hours of Japanese (much harder than French was)
· Launched this blog
With that said, life’s more than just the highlights so I also wanted to share three big lessons that I’ve learned in the past quarter.
If there’s one word that can summarize this past quarter, it’s stressful.
Moving from Chiang Mai to Bali with three weeks in Hong Kong as well as making two additional side trips was stressful. Juggling my time to so I could be with all the people who I care about in each place was stressful. Striving, but not reaching the goals I had original set for Quarter 1 was stressful.
And a result of that stress, I feel regret.
After living in Bali for a couple of weeks I went surfing for the first time and it was a great feeling to get into the water, feel the sun and try something new and fun. It’s been a while since I’ve had access to a beach and water like I do here in Bali and so I couldn’t have asked for a better morning.
Today marks Video Husky’s first year in business and it’s been quite the ride!
Having just closed out February, we’re now working with 51 active customers who bring in $23K in MRR (monthly recurring revenue) and a team of 17 who work hard every day to make sure that we’re able to not only deliver high quality videos on a regular basis, but more importantly, build relationships with our customers so that both parties can benefit together in the long run. It’s a long way from when we first began just over a year ago, and so I wanted to share a couple of the big lessons in leadership that I’ve learned through Video Husky during this time.
In Quarter 4 of 2018 I set five goals:
· Write 10 Medium Posts
· Use Contactually (software) to help me keep in touch with people who I care about
· Grow Video Husky to $50k MRR
· Practice 50 hours of salsa
· Study 100 hours of Japanese
I’ve always thought that 25 was a special age.
It represents the first quarter of life — the year that I would have a defined direction in life. While not everything is 100% certain, I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had this year because they’ve helped clarify what I want out of life, provided me with the means to achieve those goals and most importantly, the hunger and desire to pursue them.
The biggest thing that happened for me this past quarter was moving down to Chiang Mai…and while it’s still early days, so far it’s been everything that I’ve hoped for.
I chose to leave Hong Kong because after almost two years of living there, I just felt like I didn’t fit. Between having friends and family around me, a great apartment and ample football opportunities — on paper I had everything necessary for a great life…but it just wasn’t right.
In the last update that I wrote about Video Husky, we were 98 days old and had just acquired our 10th customer. In my mind, this was a huge milestone because it represented both validation and product-market fit.
When I first moved back in Hong Kong in 2016 I was only meant to stay for 4 months. The plan was to re-connect with friends and family, take some time to finish my degree and then leave for France or Japan, learn the language and lead an “awesome” life.
A few days late, but on June 7th, we got our 10 customers for Video Husky (8 of whom were complete strangers)!
It’s something that I didn’t legitimately expect to happen (we only had 4 customers on May 30th), but things ramped up quickly and over the past couple of weeks we’ve delivered a good amount of work for our customers with 0 complaints.
