Hi, it’s Melissa, Cofounder and CEO of eWebinar. Welcome (back) to “your founder next door“, a weekly publication on the strategies and stories behind building a company without an abundance of resources and friends in high places. No BS, just straight-up truth bombs.
I’ve been struggling with how to grow my company and find things that move the needle meaningfully. It’s been going on for a while now.
We’ve been at this for six years. We have customers who love eWebinar, who’ve built us into how their company runs, who would be very upset if we disappeared. I don’t take that lightly.
What we don’t have is the growth trajectory that my cofounder and I have been working so hard for. Our version of the hockey stick growth. Or, is that a myth?
Social media doesn’t help. Every day there’s another company hitting $10M in a year, or even $100M in a year doing something AI related. You read enough of those and it’s inevitable to feel behind, and wonder… What’s wrong with what I’m doing?
Last week I sent a long, honest update to my friend Andrew Flachner, Cofounder and CEO of RealScout.
We met over ten years ago at a charging station at a real estate conference. He’s one of the hardest working and most strategic people I know. I’ve watched him bring his company back from the dead through intense focus and grit. Today, RealScout is one of the most celebrated companies in the real estate industry. In the years I’ve known him, he has hit result after result after result.
In my update, I shared that I was feeling demotivated because nothing we do seems to be working well. I’m about to try some other things, with a lot of doubt about whether any of them will land. I’m also unsure I’m putting effort into the right business, or if there’s an opportunity cost in not trying something else given how fast everything is moving.
People love to say XYZ doesn’t work. Outreach is dead. SEO is dead. LinkedIn is dead. I don’t think asking if something is going to work is the right question. It’s not whether something will work. It’s how it’ll work for you. The moment you decide something doesn’t work, you’ve already decided its fate. Then you stop trying.
I see this in my own business constantly. Someone tries our software, doesn’t see results right away, and goes straight back to what they were doing before believing, this doesn’t work for my business. They never ask why it works for a thousand other companies and question their own setup, their pitch, their video. It’s easier to blame the method or channel than to look at the execution.
Then I looked at my own strategies. SEO, outreach, social... none of it given enough time or depth. I question the channels, moving on before asking what I’d have to change to make it work.
In his response, Andrew said he’d flip the question slightly. Not how it will work for you. How long until it works for you.
He said, imagine a wall in front of you. You can take a sledgehammer and swing at random spots, a bit of SEO, then a podcast, then outreach, then something else. Or you can hit the same spot over and over and over. He said that’s just how he thinks about success. Sure, you might find out that part of the wall is lined with lead and it’s never going to open. Then you move to another spot. But you have to chip away at it long enough to find out.
I love this wall analogy. In real life, we seldom get a wrecking ball to destroy the wall in front of us, as much as we’d like one. We don’t go from point A to point B on a rocket ship. We walk, or we drive, or we catch a train, and all of it happens at different speeds.
What we have are tools and time. The strategy becomes which tools you’re going to commit to, which part of the wall you’ll be chipping at, and how long you’ll be at it for.
I want to be clear that I’m not an advocate for never giving up. Sometimes you have to say no to one thing to say yes to another. The hard part is knowing when. Maybe the answer is in the wall too. If you hit lead enough times, then you’ll know it’s time to move on. How do you know? I think when the time comes, you just do.
My conversation with Andrew reminded me of a fable I learned in grade one. Li Bai was a boy who kept running away from his studies because they were too hard. One day he passed an old woman by a stream, grinding a thick iron rod against a stone. He asked what she was doing. She said she was making a needle. He laughed and said it’s not possible given how thick the iron was. She said if she worked at it everyday, it would eventually become a needle. Inspired by her work ethic and patience, he went back to his studies and grew up to be one of China’s greatest poets.
Yes, there’s a part of me that’s scared that none of what we’re doing works. However, the opposite perspective is just as available. What if it does work? If I knew I couldn’t fail, what would I do?
Maybe one day, I’ll look back at where I am today and see how close I was. I can’t wait to write that piece.
For now, I’m picking up my tools to chip away at the wall.
Patience has never been my virtue, but that doesn’t matter. The wall doesn’t care how fast I want this.
So, how do you break down that wall in front of you?
Pick a tool, pick a spot, and stay there long enough to earn your conclusion. If that part turns out to be lined with lead, find another spot and try again. What you shouldn’t do is swing a sledgehammer and decide the wall is unbreakable.
If you’re building something too, pick up your tools this week and pick a spot.
Till next time,
— Melissa, your founder next door ✌️
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Great article, Melissa! I love the wall analogy; it really reframes the way I look at building a business.
What a fantastic and raw insight into what a founder goes through. We too often highlight the highs but forget to showcase just how many lows there are, too. I'm glad you were able to reach out to your friend for advice. We all need that from time to time to keep going or to look at the wall in a different way. And that iron bar analogy is a great mindset reframe as well!
Thank you for sharing this. I have no doubt many will benefit from reading it. I know I did.