Reflecting on 2022
2022 was tough, but amid the difficulties there's also been incredible growth. Read on to learn more.
I was planning to share my reflections on the past year in January, but life and business were very busy over the last few months. So here I am with my overdue account of 2022.
2022 was…
2022 was rough, man.
The ambitious objectives I set out for EnVsion were not reached. Neither revenue nor user growth matched my expectations. It sucks and it’s tough to admit it, but these are the truth. And my goal in all my writings is to tell the truth, so there you have it. Nevertheless, there’s been noticeable progress and learnings along the way. I’d be remiss not to mention them too.
Focusing on SEO and UX Research
Last year we focused on two core activities: investing in SEO and diving into the world of UX Research. On both fronts, we’ve done well.
SEO
On the SEO front, we are now raking in the top ~5 on UX Research terms like discussion guide. This is in great part thanks to our very approachable blog post on discussion guides. We’ve also written good quality content on related areas such as on generative research and the TEDW method of asking questions during user interviews.
It took time to research and write these articles, but I’m glad we did it. It certainly gives an aura of credibility to what we’re doing because we’re able to write well about it.
However, writing good articles is only one side of the SEO coin. Distributing that content to an ever greater audience for greater reach is the other challenge that we must overcome. I don’t think we did well enough in this area last year. That’s why in 2023 distribution will be at the center of all our marketing activities.
UX Research
We’ve also spent considerable time learning about UX Research. Not being a UX Researcher myself, I set out to learn as much as possible about this discipline with the limited time I had. I read countless articles on UX Research, highlighted passages from these and took detailed notes. I also read highly recommended books like Interview Users (by Steve Portigal) or Don’t Make Me Think (by Steve Krug).
My knowledge of the topic certainly grew but I lacked the experience in this area. Therefore I approached and spoke with 40+ User Researchers in order to more deeply understand who they were and what their job consisted of. My goals through these conversations was to assimilate their experience and gain some insights that would provide some guidance into how we should evolve EnVsion. My other reasons for talking to these professionals were expand my network and turn some of them into early adopters of EnVsion.
These conversations have truly been invaluable. I wished I did more of them, but after a while it felt I was hitting some diminishing returns because I was hearing things I had already heard before from previous conversations. The rate of new learnings was dramatically slowing down, so I also slowed down my interviewing of UX Researchers. Nowadays, I try to speak with at least 2 UX Researchers per month purely for discovery purposes.
Bootstrapping a startup is hard, super hard
Overall, we’ve certainly made good progress on SEO and refined our understanding of the UX Research space. This has enabled us to improve the product too, but we are still far from the promised land of Product Market Fit.
Building a startup on the side while having a demanding full time consulting job certainly feels like you are playing in hardcore mode. I knew this when I took the decision to continue working on EnVsion even as we failed to raise money from investors. I knew it was hard, yet it was even harder than I imagined.
Personal growth
Bootstrapping for over a year has required me to constantly evolve and raise my game. I feel I’ve become more clued up, more confident, and more hardened through this journey.
Despite the setbacks, I feel I’ve grown a lot personally and acquired promising skills in marketing and other business areas. I’m not sure I would have grown so much personally had we received funding.
Additionally I became a parent to a beautiful baby girl, so 2022 has absolutely been a net positive in my personal life. My partner and I feel incredibly blessed to have been given the gift of raising a wonderful human being into this world.
Having a child changes you. I feel it gives you a broader perspective on life, on the human condition, and makes you rethink what really matters in this existence on Earth. I feel it’s making me more whole.
My ambition for EnVsion remains intact. In fact I feel my desire for success with EnVsion is even greater than before because I want my daughter to have an even better life than mine (this doesn’t mean she will be spoilt by the way). But now, more than even before, I’m keenly aware that there are more important things in life than just business.
2023
I’m very excited about the year ahead. There’s lots of things we are planning for EnVsion. I also look forward to trying, failing, learning, and trying again to succeed.
I’m hopelessly optimistic. Maybe it’s because of my youth in France spent reading/watching mangas and anime (like Saint-Seiya) or adventure novels (like Dumas’ Three Musketeers). I just have absolute faith in myself and still believe I am the hero of my own story 😆. So the adventure continues!
The score has been reset in 2023, so I wish you all good health and success in your endeavours. May you build the future you are passionate about, have a positive impact on people you care about, and reach your highest score 🎯
Happy New Year!
Thanks for reading this post! I share my learnings and progress while building my startup EnVsion! EnVsion helps busy customer-facing teams save hours finding and sharing key learnings from videos of customer conversations in order to build market-dominating products.
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