Eating yourself alive.

I went to school for efficiency. I studied things like queuing theory, stochastic operations research and lean six sigma. It became my job to produce more in less time, and without defects. I read Deming, Taylor and Grove. I visited factories, analyzed shopping lines, scheduled warships for the Navy.

Then I became a founder. At first, efficiency had little place. It was all invention. So I went back to my childhood days as an artist and relearned how to create. How to take a blank canvas and try something new. It was scary but thrilling. More and more people wanted what we were making. Even investors wanted in. If we put in $X now, can you grow Y% faster? Yes, it made good sense.

And it worked. We sold more widgets than ever. We got real good at selling, tweaking, selling, tweaking. We traded our paint brushes for process. For quality control. For margin expansion. And I must say, it felt rather natural. It was what I was trained to do. Deming, Taylor and Grove came flooding back. Reduce time, reduce defects. That was the way to win now.

Then something strange happened. People didn’t want our widget anymore.

At first it was hard to see. It didn’t show up in the numbers. People complained like they always did. And we made it right, like we always did. People lost deals like they always did. And we gave discounts, like we always did. But then people stopped coming back altogether. No amount of free stuff or false promises could get them to stay. While we were busy optimizing things, someone else had created something new. Not just new, they said better. Better? Better than us? That’s not possible. How could they leave after all these years? After all we had done for them. They said sorry, it’s not personal. It’s just, well, you’ve lost your magic.

So we rushed out our canvases and every paintbrush we could find. We called it an emergency creative session because damn right, that’s what it was, a fucking emergency. We tried and we tried and we tried but nothing came out. Nothing worth keeping at least. The blank canvas told us everything we needed to know. It was too late. We had optimized away the very thing that made us special in the first place. Better start cutting, slashing and firing. There was nothing left to squeeze.

In the first round of layoffs I sat with someone who’d been with us for years. We have to let you go, I said. What about my family, he said back. It’s over, I thought. Can’t you see that? But he could not.

Instead, I said nothing and walked him to the door. I was already ten minutes late and had more people to get to.

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This story was inspired by a particularly low point at my former company, Classy. We did rebound after this, rediscovered some of that early magic, and sold to GoFundMe many years later. But this was one of the hardest days of my career.

I feel machine-like in the story because that’s what I was reduced to. People said I did the best job I could. Keeping it humane. I don’t know about that. I still regret not doing more for the very people who helped us get there.

Last week, GoFundMe laid off nearly 100 people, many of them former Classy teammates. When you sell your company, you lose your say. I have no official position anymore, so I don’t know why they made this move. I’m sure there were reasons, there always are. I just hope these folks were treated with the respect they deserve. And as a shareholder, I hope they don’t forget the difference between invention and optimization, like we did so many years ago.

Till next time,

Never say die 🏴‍☠️

Scot

→ scotchisholm.com
→ highlandacademy.com

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P.S. Last week I shared a preview of the new Highland Academy website and membership model. This week, we welcomed our first members at $120/month, rather than thousands of $$ up front. Details below. Hope you find it valuable!

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“At the shrine of friendship,
never say die.”