This is Part 4 of a weekly series on my growth and development at a software startup in Austin Texas. Click here to view the full series or start at Level 1.

Week four was a week of connections. I was full blown in meetings with clients every day while also emailing constantly to schedule more meetings and creating videos for support.

I’m starting to have more of a vision for where my role can go. Each day I work, I understand a little bit more and figure out how to contribute a little better.

Level Four Stats

Weapons gained:

    • Experience + 6: I closed my first deal this week. Almost on accident but I somehow got a potential client to buy our most expensive package. Asking relevant questions goes a long way.
    • Connections + 8: I had lunch with four strangers, I ate dinner at a family’s house who I had only met once, I got coffee with a guy at church. These were not trivial “get to know you’s” these were intentional meetings with incredible conversations.
    • Ability + 2: Sent a proposal to a potential customer.
    • Knowledge + 2: Found myself becoming more and more comfortable demoing features of our platform.
    • Discipline + 0: Keeping up with my routine and not much else.
    • Organization + 2: Learning how to balance between meetings and scheduling other meetings, meanwhile, working on projects outside of that. I’ve been struggling going back and forth between so many tasks and have more put on my plate every day but so far, I am managing to keep all of my tasks and accounts organized.
    • Strength – 4: Didn’t play Ultimate at all this week because of scheduling conflicts and now that I have been driving to work I’m not even active in the morning. Looking to start biking to work soon.

Kills:

  • Closed my first deal
  • Sent my first proposal
  • Created two more support videos for our support page

Deaths:

  • Just got an email from a client that they are terminating services. My job is to keep our customers happy, so I take this as a personal loss and a business loss. Time to up my game.

Outside the Game

Found a church that I like and going again tomorrow. Met really cool people from there and have gotten together with several of them this week.

Moved out of the office and into a house with roommates finally. First time sleeping on a bed in almost a month.

Ate out more times than I planned with my budget.

Final Takeaways

This was a very medium level week. It was a week that I got all of my responsibilities done, even done well, but I’m hungry for contributing more – at work and outside of it. I need to start thinking and making plans because I’ve found that if I let free time get to me without a plan, 9 times out of 10 I waste it. If I have a plan or course of action going into that free time, I’m ready to go with it and will spend all day on it.

My blog posts this week also suffered. I honestly have no clue if my post from last night is even coherent at all. I remember starting to write it last night and I remember hitting the button to publish but I don’t remember anything in the middle.

Several nights this week have pushed me to the edge on the blogging. I am so tired and just wish I could go to bed but I have to make sure I get the blog post in. I have a desire to write some longer posts so hopefully I can make some time to do that in the next couple of weeks.