Startup goals are rainbows

I love this photo, probably for a strange reason. It takes me back to a stressful period in my life with GoWild. 

It reminds me of a lesson I've learned, and I'm sharing it with you because I suspect some of you haven't realized it yet.

The lesson: Checking a milestone box is a fleeting high. 

I don't remember what Chris Gleim and I were doing in this photo. It's circa 2018, obviously around Christmas. My guess is we're in deep discussion about our upcoming Garmin integration.

I look tired because I was. We were sleeping about four or five hours a night at this point, and I am not glorifying or stretching to have a hashtag hustIe post. It’s just the truth. It's what it took to get that project done by the trade show launch.

It’s a great startup moment. But I totally misjudged what would be my favorite part of it all. 

The project

This photo was likely a few weeks, maybe even just days, before Chris and I would drive eight hours to Olathe, Kansas to showcase our new product to Garmin. 

We entered a partnership with Garmin in July 2018 to build a watch app integration with GoWild. The watch app would track your hunting, fishing and archery and import it into the platform. Chris and I had just gone full time with GoWild. Donovan and Zack, our other two cofounders, had not even quit their full-time gigs yet.

This was a huge moment for us. 

In addition to building a project together with one of the biggest brands in the outdoor space, we were going to roll it out in their booth at the largest archery trade show in January. Along with building the watch integration, we decided to redesign the GoWild app to make the importing of activities easy. We would also launch an in-app activity tracking functionality for your phone. This would be our biggest app update yet with GoWild 3.0. 

As if building a new watch app, redesigning our app, launching GPS tracking, and creating the marketing material to go with this new product wasn’t enough, we also decided to redesign our website on top it all. We wanted the site to reflect the new functionality. 

It was too much for a team of six. 

Stress levels were high.

As we neared the deadline, the pressure was mounting. 

Coming into the final days before presenting the final product to Garmin, Chris had an epiphany. Actually—and this won’t even sound real—the idea came to him in a dream. 

We had already built the app to import your activity and let you scroll through to see elevation changes and distance in an interactive timeline, along with your photos. It was pretty cool, but Chris realized he could actually replicate your heart rate through the phone’s haptic, replicating what your heart rate actually felt like in the moment you saw the big buck or caught the big bass with a small vibration.

It was and still is incredible. 

We sprinted to the finish, drove the eight hours to show Garmin, and I’ll never forget their faces as we unveiled what we had built. Their team was pulling in random passerby employees to come and see what these guys from Kentucky did with a Garmin. A higher up was called in. One team member said it was the best use of tracking data they had seen. And Chris was invited to be a keynote speaker at Garmin’s upcoming conference.

It was surreal. 

We made most of our deadlines, but the Android app missed it by weeks. Chris and I fired our Android engineer for failing to keep up during this time period. Later we realized that we were failing as leaders by expecting founder-like ownership out of someone who wasn't a founder. We weren't managing him well and failed to realize how far behind he was until it was too late. It was an important lesson, and one that sticks with me today.

The hype video for our Garmin app

The most memorable moments were in the building, not the launch

We had pushed ourselves so hard to hit the deadline, our entire team was sick. Turns out that sleeping only 4 or 5 hours a night for six weeks straight isn’t good for you. We limped into the trade show and pitched our butts off to anyone who wanted to see the new product. I had a great time showcasing the product to archery shop owners and celebrities alike. 

Showing the new heart rate functionality to famed veteran, Omar “Crispy” Avila at the trade show.

Weirdly enough, though, the high faded faster than an elevated heart rate after a hike.

The actual fun was in the hell we put ourselves through.

It was creating something together, thinking of all of the use cases, the edge cases that could prove problematic, polishing bells and whistles, creating the marketing material, laughing together over something dumb someone else said probably because they were hopped up on cold meds, and maybe some Jameson in their coffee. 

Checking goals

In the years since, we've checked hit milestone after milestone that I dreamt about since these early days. There were huge celebrations in the office and on Slack.

But each time I’ve found that once you've accomplished the goal, you are left empty. 

You have to find a new purpose.

This is why goals are problematic. This is timely because many people will start preparing their 2024 goals soon.

I've read content and books from many leaders who advocate for systems and not goals. I've even heard some leaders say goals just set you up for failure. I don't know if I would go that far, but I do know you have to find purpose and joy outside of the goals and milestones.

The actual success moments in achieving goals are the tiniest of blips in time. Their joy is fleeting, like the high of riding a roller coaster. The real joy is found in the daily battle. 

One day, when you look back, you're going to remember the moments like the one in this picture—the hard work you put in, and the fun you had along the way. 

The outcome? That'll just be one sentence of the whole story.

Don’t forget to soak up these good times. 

The most interesting part of any startup book isn’t the chapter where they went public or sold for a billion dollars. It’s when they were a small team, going to battle every day. Those chapters are always the longest for a reason. 

I think you should set goals. But I think you also have to be realistic that goals are rainbows—you’ll never get to that pot of gold because they are ever changing with the horizon. 

Parting thought / shout out

Garmin was one of the first brands to believe in us, and I am proud to say we’re still working with them today as a retailer for their products. Check out their products on GoWild here, and if any of my Garmin colleagues are reading this—thank you for believing in us.

Who I’m listening to: Gabe Lee

What I’m reading: “The Way I Heard It” by Mike Rowe

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