Looking back & taking time off
Let's get the admin side of things out of the way:
I'll be taking the next few weeks off to welcome me and my partner's new baby boy into this world. So this will be the last email you receive from pre-dad Joe š
Given my currently flexible and fluid work situation, I haven't decided how long a break I'll be taking from Ops Hacks. I plan on coming back to the Slack community after a couple weeks, but might need a bit more time to get back to writing these weekly emails. I can only fathom how big a change having a baby will be and want to make sure I give myself and my family enough time to make the transition as smooth as possible.Ā
So that's a long-winded way of saying you'll hear from me when you hear from me š
Looking back on Ops Hacks' journey so far
I started the predecessor of this newsletter on August 12 of last year by describing what an ops hack was. Since then, we launched a new landing pageĀ and moved the newsletter over to a dedicated email service provider.Ā
I've tried chasing a vanity metric in the form of 100 active members. I shifted away from long-form blog posts to LinkedIn content as the primary lead gen engine. After the shift,Ā I posted content every weekday on LinkedIn for the past 205 days (since October 29, 2021).
We hosted three Speaker Series events (on expansion, a no code tool, and Airtable) and an IRL meetup.
And most recently, we opened up the community growing andĀ building activities to the community and started co-building.
Key lessons
I've learned more about work and life since I started building Ops Hacks than any other time since graduating from university. There have been many invaluable lessons, but here are a few that are top of mind:
Consistency matters, especially when you're starting from scratch. Posting on LinkedIn every day wasn't always easy. But the consistency of putting content out everyday wins over the biggest skeptics. Folks who might have just seen my post and not signed up - after seeing me write about early stage ops 3, 4, and 5 times, they would start engaging with the post and eventually sign up. Being consistent in your messaging and outputĀ can be gruelling work, but it eventually pays off. This rule applies in every other area of an early stage startup.
Meet new people and expand your network & reconnect with old friends and maintain your network. I've had over a 100 virtual coffee chats with prospective members, former colleagues, and old friends since starting Ops Hacks - that's about one coffee chat every other day.Ā These conversations, with people from various backgrounds and with a wide array of experiencesĀ have been fascinating and insightful. They've led to interesting opportunities and new ways of looking at things. Invest time into nurturing your relationships and be open to new connections, and your lifeĀ starts becoming a lot more interesting.
Building a community isĀ seriously a marathon. I know it's cliche to say in startup circles, but building a community truly feels like a marathon. Every connection andĀ conversation helps a little bit in solidifying the foundation of the community. And these things just take a ton of time.Ā When this fact finally clicked for me, it enabled me to re-strategize what the growth of the community should be like. Key features of Ops Hacks - like no membership fee, co-building - were a result of this realization that communities are built over a long period of time and IĀ shouldn't rush it.
For those of you in ops, entrepreneurship or community building,Ā I hope following along my journey so far has been helpful.Ā
I look forward to taking the next few weeks off to prioritize family, andĀ I'll be back soon to continueĀ to share my learnings.