So, it’s been a little hectic since the last post, and lessons have been learned – many of them!
My number one lesson? As soon as you think you know something, it changes.
No kidding! Not only is every baby different—trust me, we have twins, and what works for one doesn’t for the other—but also what worked yesterday doesn’t work today. They also have no regard for your plans, schedules, or client calls. So inconsiderate!
Anyway, it’s been an interesting few months, and I’m squeezing in some part-time work around the twins. It’s been quite transformative in terms of:
- Prioritisation: Dropping from 7.5 hours to 2 a day, the focus has to be on impact
- Delegation: You have to utilise your team. You can’t hold on to what you did before
- Procrastination: There’s no time to waste time here – efficiency is key
The net result has been both the good and bad end of the stick for our newest team member, who joined to help take work off my plate and allow us to keep growing. There’s definitely some good freedom and autonomy in this role, both through necessity and high trust levels. And he has demonstrated he’s more than up to task!
Case in point: The day the twins arrived, I had to tell him, “That project we were going to do a handover on is all yours now – good luck!”
Things that help as a parent and business owner
🗓️ In the main, working to a (semi-flexible) feeding and sleeping schedule has been a game changer. As parents, we have at least some predictability and, for the business, can plan in a few calls.
👥 Trusting the team! All of them have stepped up and taken things off my plate at various points. We have great people, and it’s made life much more manageable.
🍼 Nanny! We have some help a few times a week, and similar to the schedule benefit, it’s glorious to know when you might have some uninterrupted time to plan in calls or high-impact delivery work.
Things that have been challenging as a new parent and business owner
📈 Keeping up with clients and the sales pipeline proved a little tricky for a couple of months there. Now, my top priority is checking in with our clients on a regular basis and managing the inflow of new business.
😄 Fun! It’s easy to get bogged down in babies, household chores and work. With the addition of day support and a little more predictability with the babies’ schedule, planning in some fun times has helped boost the general mood.
Business strategy as a new parent: What’s next?
Good people are key!
In addition to our excellent development team, we’ve added to our talent with:
- We’ve engaged a new CFO, Alfie Wenegieme, via Cactus and look forward to some structure and focus around our financials. Early discussions have already been both thought-provoking and energising.
- We’ve been obtaining independent feedback from our clients with the help of Remeny Armitage Royle at Brilliant and Human, which is helping instruct our operations strategy, service and marketing focus. It’s been a seamless process and generating hugely valuable insight.
- You’ll be hearing more from us with the support of Ben Horsley-Summer, aka Null, who is himself a brilliant human and one I’d love to keep all to ourselves!
- Last but not least, we’re extending our outreach with PPC campaign support from Mark Proctor of Dropkick Marketing and it’s been great to see some early results and welcome new clients to the fray.
Pipeline
- We’re working on five new major projects to automate business processes for our clients. Which makes five businesses that are about to get seriously scaled up.
Operations
- We’re working on our own internal systems to automate more of our processes. The old ‘cobbler’s shoes’ phrase is suddenly very apt here!
Overall, it’s been an exciting (if slightly exhausting) period of living, loving and learning. But I wouldn’t change a thing. Keep your eyes peeled for Parentrepreneur instalment number three, coming soon-ish.
If you want chat about parenting and ‘businessing’ then hit me up – I’d love to share our parentrepreneur ups, middlings and downs over a virtual coffee.
Or, if you’re a business owner looking to free up your time for parenting, general life stuff, or you’d simply like to scale up and make more money, then contact us.
