Theme

Professional

Notable Failures

Failure is the mother of success?


A small!? list of things that I failed at and want to ensure I learn from moving forward:

  • Talking with other managers about company issues while smoking in the alley (employees overhear and may miss context.)
  • Not giving notice when quitting my job (out of frustration) to pursue my business full-time.
  • Software-development projects that don't have clear scope.
  • Software-development projects that don't reserve my time through deposits/retainer.
  • Software-development projects unless it's my own internal product.
  • Luvbrd.com - Send a care package to your loved one automatically every month
  • Timelords.watch - A drop-shipping powered watch store for geeks/nerds/developers
  • FullStackApparel.com - Apparel, accessories, and more for engineers, nerds, geeks, and developers (now the Call Theory story)
  • HourlyCheck.com - A managed service for call centers to automate communication systems checks (failure to launch at conference due to COVID-19)
  • CallCenterTrunk.com - An employee-focused managed gifting service for call centers and their employees (failure to launch at conference due to COVID-19, couldn't get traction after)
  • GroveCityGuns.com - An online platform for managing regulations and paperwork for Federal Firearms License (FFL) - wife didn't want ATF at our house
  • Backing down over competitor threats when I knew I was in the right (paid for patent protection attorney without realizing I was being patent trolled)
  • Sales & Use Tax Preparation and Filing - I couldn't pay someone enough money to do this, so I just automated it instead.
  • Holdmusic.io - A free and managed resource for hold music that doesn't sound terrible. Still powers some older IVRs I made, but I'm otherwise folding this into Call Theory.
  • Steps - An online step-tracking application for companies to have internal challenges (used by NAEO for a few years)
  • CallCenterScore.com - A full-service, 3rd-party call testing and QA platform for call centers
  • TASNinja.com - Gamification for call center agents to learn security awareness training
  • Making subscription plans too broad in scope leading to misses in expectations of services provided
  • WCTP Gateway - Unable to get Amtelco to work with me in any meaningful way
  • Grove City Tech Lab, Attempt #1 - Unable to meet requirements of Apple/Google support partners (primarily due to lack of retail space)
  • The Scooter - Still paying off the ER bill, but at least now I know what I'm doing.
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