What I Learned In 2019

The holiday season is always a blur. It is busy at work, busy at home…busy everywhere. But as the last few days of 2019 passed me by, I couldn’t help but reflect on what I experienced this year and the lessons I will be taking with me into 2020.

This year was a busy one for me. I launched byte, a direct-to-consumer invisible aligner company. It has taken a lot of hard work, long hours, and course correcting but the business is doing well. Most of what I learned this year is related to growing that business. I have launched several businesses throughout my career, and so the lessons detailed below are not groundbreaking or newly discovered. Instead, they are fundamental life lessons that deserve to be repeated, and are reinforced for me year after year after year. 

Live By The Models

This is a belief I have been espousing for years, but it is a modus operandi that was substantiated again with the launch of byte. With every new business, you need to have a business model designed to generate revenue, and you need to live and die by that model. Consider every decision through the lens of “how will this affect my bottom line?” Companies that live in the red are doomed to fail. Instead, know your market, know what you need to do to be successful, and then execute. Do not try to make guesses about market trend or future consumer patterns because ultimately, it is all about the revenue.

Success is a Game of Inches

Success does not happen over night. You will never open your doors or launch your new site and have money immediately start rolling in. The wins are small. They will trickle in over time until you have a steady stream of good things happening all at once. That is what success is. It does not look the way most people expect it to since it happens gradually and over time, but it is always worth waiting for. Take a moment to celebrate each achievement as it comes in, and eventually you will be celebrating a successful endeavor.

Relationships Are Key

This is something that a lot of people either forget or neglect. There is a belief out there that so long as you work hard, success will find you. This is demonstrably not true. Work in a vacuum is not worth anything. If you want to be successful, you need to put yourself in a position to be discovered. Talk to people, foster connections, and always keep an open mind. A good relationship can open the door to a room you have no business being in. In many cases you may not have even realized the door was there at all. Now remember, once you are in the room you have to perform, and that is where the hard work comes in. But if you didn’t bother to foster the relationship that opened the door to begin with then you are stuck in the hallway, grinding it out alone until you retire.

2019 was a year of reinforcement for me. A year in which I realized that I can lean on my experience in order to feel confident in my decisions. I cannot wait to see what 2020 has in store. I hope that nothing but success and happiness finds each and every one of you.