Badass Backpacks has been trucking along these last few weeks. Moving a million miles an hour in a million different directions. That’s not entirely bad, until the moment when we catch ourselves: Lost in the Woulds.
LlAaYyEeRrSs
Side Projects have just as many layers as any other project, and passionate founders always find ourselves musing about all of the possibilities – especially for a project that sits at the beginning of what we anticipate to be a long journey ahead. The possibilities for Badass Backpacks, and all that we want to do, have been nothing short of intoxicating in 2016. It’s beautiful and it’s a lot of fun. But when the rubber hits the road, it quickly becomes evident that we must have a clear identity to step into, so we can be clear with ourselves (and clear with you) about where exactly we plan to take this whole thing next.
We’re still happy with our chosen 3 critical paths. These guide how we choose to focus and spend our time:
- Making our Badass Backpacks – creating new bags.
- Evolving our website – telling our story and connecting with you.
- Evolving our identity – the emotional labor required to help this project to be and/or to become all that we want it to be.
Path 1 and Path 2 have been where most our physical labor for this project has been focused this year. I’ll get some more updates on both of those very soon (thank you for the nudging curiosity from all of you).
And then there’s Path 3. What is Badass Backpacks? And what is this all for? This past Tuesday, Rusty spear-headed a working BFD session to focus on our chosen identity — what do we want for Badass Backpacks? Getting clear on this, we feel, is critical to understanding what steps we choose to take next. This is, afterall, a side project for the moment and fight or try as we may: there is only so much time in each day. I, of course, still dream of doing it all. But focus. We must be constantly improving how we choose to spend our limited time. We used this book, The Business Model Generation, which was was a gift from the altMBA. Rusty printed out 20 copies of the Business Model Canvas, we started with some conversation — and then we opened our minds, suspended reality, rolled up our sleeves, we put pen to paper, and we entertained the various possibilities for Badass Backpacks. The results were stunning.
I walked away from the exercise feeling with a strange sense of relief. Strange because seeing all of these business models and finding a new understanding of some of our challenges leaves me more overwhelmed than ever with the realization that we have so many things that we want to do. And just imagine the difference between a project that chooses to focus on delivering Quality Bags [“Bags, Bags, Bags” below] first and foremost vs. a project that is focused first on delivering Stories [“Story, Story, Story” below] vs. a project that is focused on delivering a paradigm shift for our tribe [“Change, Change, Change” below]. When we allowed ourselves to talk about the levers and moving pieces for separate business models that each focused on these different Value Propositions: the entire business model on that canvas was impacted. Who do we work with, what channels do we develop to connect with more people, how do we select which activities to put on our front burner with our limited time for this project, how do we choose to direct our resources, and ultimately what kind of audience will we seek to connect with? For each canvas: if this is the path that we choose to focus on — how will this impact the decisions we make for what we do next?
An onion is a thing that has a lot of layers. Lots and lots and lots of layers. But when we talk about it, we don’t get lost in all of its many attributes and its many layers. We don’t describe it by saying, “it’s this thing that is complicated, and when you cut it open it releases sulfur gas that mixes with the water in our eyes to make sulfuric acid which then makes us cry but it tastes really good so we cut them open all the time anyway.” No. We just call it an onion. Our business model exercise made me more aware than ever of the complicated layers that we have been dreaming and developing. This project has a lot of layers. And that makes me smile. But let’s stay potently self aware, because it’s tempting to get wrapped up in the noise and the beauty of the spiraling possibilities — all of the side tangents, and all of the ideas for where we want to go. Lost in the woulds. Equationing, dreaming, and musing. This initial work to understand our own layers (and the emotional labor to understand what identity we want to pursue) should help us a lot as we prepare for the second half of 2016. We must make some decisions. So that we can focus. And hopefully find our way out of the woulds.