How to make 2024 your best year ever
A company can only grow as much as you do
Dear GTM friend!
I hope that while you are enjoying your holiday break, you find a moment or two to reflect and strategize on your 2024 endeavors. December is a wonderful time to do that. Nature and business stop for a while, almost as a gift to our busy minds to calm down and re-evaluate our mission.
Every time that entrepreneur wishes another entrepreneur to “take a good rest during the holidays”, I smirk for a second because, for most of us, it is not a switch button.
If you are preparing your GTM strategy, launching new products or services, securing investments, and fighting to win more traction, it is stressful. And you cannot just let go and shift from 100 to zero because there are holidays.
Last week, I was working with Web 3.0 and AI teams in Serbia with Swiss EP. I was mentoring 14 teams, presented at 3 events, and worked from 8 am to 10 pm three days in a row. I wanted to give it everything because these are “my people” and we have a pretty cool science to help on the GTM traction.
What surprised me the most was the number of “lifestyle” topics that teams felt it was important to address at mentorship sessions:
Two co-founders, who are also a couple, probably came for “permission” to scale their already viral social media by hiring another social media manager, which would allow them to focus on product strategy. We also talked about the maker mode and how important it is to protect some time in a day to do undisrupted work.
There was a guy who did not have the “spark” for the idea he presented. I asked him what made him excited about his venture in the first place. He started to talk about some AI networks and how consensus is being made (something super technical). I quickly realized that he was not passionate about selling the product to corporates, and we made peace that it is an intermediate step to secure money so that later on, the team can spend more time working on their product-led business model and build a strong community. At the same time, he can start knowledge sharing now.
Last but not least, one of the teams went a bit bananas. They thought the question “Are you solving a real problem?” was like a cup of baby lions. I love the passion. But if you spend half of the session trying to convince a mentor why your solution is the best instead of asking smart questions, we might have a bit of an ego issue there.
Every growth is you-led
What do all these “tales” have in common? On a spectrum from lifestyle to professional conversation, these types of conversation touch the left side of the spectrum.
By now I strongly believe that the company grows as fast and much as you do as an entrepreneur because every growth is founder-led first.
You will have to do the first sales calls.
You will answer the first support tickets.
You will select the first team members.
But we all come with some nervous system deficiencies from being “completely chill” on this journey and some traumas that are hard to process.
Recognizing them is the first step to getting better.
I like to start by externalizing the issue. It is not that “I have a fear of rejection” - the issue is that the fear of rejection is preventing me from sending out more pitching emails. If I find a way to defeat it, my business is probably going to grow faster and better.
Now I can work on it.
I consider myself more of a logical person, so my mental process goes like this.
What is the worst thing that can happen? - I can upset someone, get a “no”, or be ignored.
OK, can you live with it? - Yeah, I think I can.
What is the minimal thing that you can do to break the chain? - Maybe send 50 LinkedIn messages for a start.
Now - what can I do in the next hour/day/week to collect the evidence that I will not die alone, abandoned by my tribe because I sent out 50 emails? - Just freaking send them today!
It is not always easy, and some issues never disappear.
You just get better at dealing with them, and you can eventually turn some into your “pets”. Collect the evidence that whatever they are whispering in your ear is a delusion. Their arguments will slowly fade—exposure therapy rocks.
High five, imposter syndrome - we had an issue with public performance, but we are pushing hard enough. Been there, done that, let’s go!
Let’s get tactical: Goal-setting & barriers
It is unreasonable to expect that life will magically get different on the 1st of January 2024.
You will probably have the same or less time than you do now.
New opportunities will emerge, and it will be even harder to prioritize.
You will not change that much as a person in a week either.
This is why you will have to learn to work with what you have.
What is preventing you from reaching your goals right now?
What is your realistic setup in life? How much “more” can you give in without damaging other fields of life that make it worth living?
The right answer is rarely to work harder.
Everybody I know in the GTM space is pretty hard-working anyway.
The key to the solution is probably closer to figuring out what you can let go - outsource, stop doing, or minimize - to make space and bandwidth for new endeavors in your life.
Avoid the temptation of scattering yourself too thin - you can intensively work on 2-3 objectives at the same time. It is OK to only choose one.
In this game of delayed gratification, it will help you tremendously if you set up some sort of milestones of habit-tracking programs to see (and celebrate) intermediate steps.
One workout will not make you ripped.
One LinkedIn post will not make you famous.
One cold email is unlikely to bring a new client in.
But do it 100x and it might happen. Things compound, and we need to create a critical mass.
Here are the two frameworks (free and non-gated) that will help you with goal-setting and habit-tacking:
OKR for GTM that I co-developed with Natalie Nedre (Miro) and Matic Molicnik (Netcetera)
My weekly planner with a habit tracker that I have been using for four years now and it works like a charm for me.
I hope it will help you too, but each human is different.
I have very little tolerance left for lifestyle gurus who want you to meditate for an hour before having a cold shower and having a faux coffee from a plant that grows in Scandinavia and allegedly has superpowers.
You do you.
And get help if you are stuck on the journey.
Let me know if there is anything you need me to support your 2024 endeavors.
But please write your objectives down. 90% of people will not do that, so here you already have an advantage. You are more likely to achieve the objective if it is written down and revised often.
But for now, mission-critical is to celebrate the New Year well, to gather the strengths for your new GTM endeavors, and to say a huge thanks to the people around you who support you on your mission.
Cheers to our new wins in 2024!
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