Procrastination works the same, regardless of what’s being procrastinated on: The longer it’s procrastinated on, the easier it is to procrastinate further. It’s only urgency that can break the circuit, be it imposed upon externally through circumstances, or chosen and imposed upon internally through discipline.
I’ve been procrastinating on writing my blog entries. With math it happens regularly. I finish a section and want to move on to the next rather than go through the rigmarole of drafting and editing a math blog. Other entries on my business and life, those have been six months in waiting. That’s due to the procrastination inertia compounded by the unknown multiplier. By that I mean that so much of the last half year of my business has been waiting in limbo, that it’s been difficult to write about. Or maybe uncomfortable to write about.
I’d considered giving up on the blogs and website entirely. Given that I always have more to do than time to do it, and that the blogs have historically been so time-intensive, I could easily justify sacrificing the site for greater productivity. But it’s important for me to keep this site and these blog entries for the record. One day I’ll emerge from the shadows and want evidence of the work I’ve done. These time-stamped blogs can serve that purpose. So I’ll continue. But will adjust.
The blogs will be as if an unedited journal entry. More spontaneous, from the hip, more overview and general context. Less pedantry. What’s the point of that, anyway?
So, the accelerated bring-you-up-to-speed update:
The Business Outreach
My assistant spent months gathering data on schools the world over. We collected contact details of both targeted individuals as well as general points of contact. We ran our schools and contacts through snov.io to validate contact details. All in all we had around 1000+ verified contacts, another +1000 or so maybe-verified contacts, and then thousands of general contacts. We organized them thus.
From there we fed our contacts in SalesHandy, created a dozen or so email addresses with Zoho Mail, and began the email outreach process.
I’d read up on how to do this. The general consensus was not to be too overt, too sales-y. Rather I should approach contacts as one interested in gathering important information about their industry, and hopefully lead them towards a comfortable space where I could present my product. It didn’t work
Eventually someone replied to me stating, essentially, that they weren’t sure what I was trying to accomplish, so my email wound up in the email sock pile. It was then I speculated that perhaps the people I was reaching out to might react better to a more direct approach. Something along the lines of “This is who I am, this is what I do, this is what we’re selling, if you’d like to know more…”. So I tried that, and indeed got a markedly more positive reaction from my contacts.
The Apprehension
We’re selling something novel – contracted online Computer Science instruction for international schools. The only experience most schools have had with online instruction was during Covid. Education is a time-honored tradition. We have a system that works, and that customers pay dearly for. We’re proposing that schools try something totally different, and that they delegate oversight to us, some as-of-yet unproven strangers. Naturally, schools are suspect.
We’ve had a number of interested-to-learn-more schools, as well as a handful of interested-next-year replies. But nothing stuck. And not only was my product novel, but my pitch was unrefined, untried, drawn out of the darkness of assumptions.
The Partner Snag
And I have had a partner. More like someone to lend their experience and credibility to my venture. Someone with decades of experience in my relevant field. In the world of teachers, we could say he’s an expert. And this goes a long way when trying to convince the apprehensive schools to give the could-be-grifter, me, a chance. But then…
Then I’d forgotten. My partner had suffered reputational damage that was actually collateral damage from a divorce. He’d told me of this a few years ago when I first started. These things happen. In my mind, it in no way reflected poorly on his expertise or his passion. And I’d forgotten. But the internet is agnostic, it never forgets, and its users distrustful by default. And so it was that my partner had a mark on his record that would last for several years. And so it was that mere minutes before an important meeting with a potential customer that said customer notified me that we’d not be doing business given the questionable record of my partner.
And then it hit me that I could have lost many other potential leads who performed the same cursory search on my partner and then brushed me off in the same way that the school in question just had.
So it was that we parted ways for the time being, discouraged, but undeterred.
The Wait
I send emails, I wait. I reply to the occasional reply, and wait some more. I schedule meetings. Some people don’t show up – I wait. Other meetings go well. I wait. Over the last six months, I’ve waited while working as best as I could to further my curricular content. But what it feels like is I’ve been waiting, my life suspended in an isolation tank of uncertainty. I’ve received enough responses to verify the problem I identified. Or so I think. But so far, I’ve still not closed a deal. This has been hard. Starting out, I thought I’d need to have something closed by July so that I could prepare for a mid-August to September start. I had two leads that looked good, and one finally told me no. So now I’m still waiting for this last school which I think could really be the one. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I just continue to maintain contact with them without smothering them. I continue to develop content, think about the future, but try not to let myself get swept up in it. I try to stay present. I wait. This has been hard. I know that this is part of the process. I accept is as best as I can.
The Isolation
The work is great. I love working on my own projects. I like to build, to start with nothing and develop. To improve at it.
I can deal with the uncertainty. I know better than to give audience to the tragedy troupe of anxiety. I’m looking down the barrel of 49. What if it doesn’t work? What will I do? I know where these thoughts lead. They are there, but I am mindful not to give them my attention. I focus on what I can do now.
The isolation is very difficult. I don’t have any friends where I live. I typically spend at least a month by myself in between any meaningful human interaction. Most of my communications are limited to transactions. More than anything, I hear numbers – how much the lunch, fruit, laundry, etc. costs.
I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. In order to follow through on my projects, I need to keep my schedule open. I need to live on a paper-thin budget. That sees me living in places that I’d ultimately rather not be. That are very lonely.
To wake up day after day, looking forward to nothing more than my coffee and the morning’s math, with no anticipation of change, of meaningful interaction, and not having any idea when this will change, is difficult. But I abide. I maintain my focus, I keep my routine, I try to stay healthy and frugal. I take it one day at a time.
The Coming Months
My life continues as a split between my business endeavours and my studies. I intend, I hope to succeed, at both. If the business were to completely burn out, I’d still have the study that I enjoy, and the goal that those studies are working towards. My hope is that I can convert sales in the coming weeks, and then give a stellar performance to this new school. At the same time I’ll be moving into studying Probability Theory and then Statistics. I’ll be moving from Indonesia, trying somewhere new. Hoping to find an environment where I can enjoy meaningful interactions instead of the social isolation I suffer. Where that is will depend in large part with what happens with the business.
I’ll write more often. The entries won’t be as long as this. They’ll be little updates to myself, and my some-day reader. TImestamps along my journey. Until then, good luck, Andre. Be strong.