I launched an app yesterday and I'm feeling nervous
Just like the good ol' days.
Let's explore two situations.
Bases loaded, 2 outs bottom of the 9th, down by 1. A base hit wins the game, and an out ends it.
New business idea, you put all of your remaining capital into it. If it does well, you hit the jackpot financially; if it flops, it means bankruptcy.
Different industries, parallel situations.
I've experienced dozens of these circumstances in the past. There is a nervousness that comes with the territory. My thoughts race from when I push off my sheets in the morning to when I pull them on at night.
I'm going to be completely honest. For the last few months, I've felt nervous.
Let's backtrack.
Yesterday, I launched an app I've worked on for the past year. The app can become the best real estate assistant on the market; it has many great qualities, such as user-friendliness, utility, and shareability. Perfection is not one of those qualities.
Back to yesterday. We presented the app a la Steve Jobs to about a dozen people. I seamlessly shuffled between the features, each working flawlessly. Serotonin ran through my veins as I saw our small crowd take the information in amazement. Then, I showed off our deal analyzer, which is supposed to calculate the return on investment of any real estate deal. When I tested it before the presentation, it worked. In the demo, I inputted all the same numbers as before and confidently clicked on the analyze button. The screen displayed a big fat zero. I was expecting a different number, a double-digit one. I checked to see if I was mistaken, but I wasn't. The analyzer was not analyzing. It was similar to when Elon Musk demoed the cyber truck, and the window broke after claiming it was indestructible. I shifted to a more calm demeanor and joked, "Well, that's not supposed to happen; the team will take care of it", and continued my presentation.
If there's anything I've learned, life is full of failed moments. Still, failure is not the final verdict. I even wrote a blog about it.
I remember many instances like this when I was a baseball player. One was my senior year of college when we played against our rivals early in the year.
I was up to bat in a big situation. It was the 7th inning, and a base hit would put us ahead by one. I remember watching the first pitch go by. "Whoosh," as it hit the catcher's mitt. "Strike one," declared the umpire. The next pitch came towards my head; I even ducked a little. "Strike two". A nasty slider. I knew it was coming again on the next pitch. I was determined to not strike out. The next pitch was similar to the last, a slider that began at my head and returned into the strike zone. I took a defensive swing at it and hit it off the handle of my bat back to the pitcher. He took his time, shuffled, and fired a missile to first base before I made it halfway there, almost as if to mock me. I wouldn't get another at-bat that game. We ended up losing by one run. Frustrated, I returned to my locker. Still, I knew better than to hang on to it. I understood I'd have the same opportunity very soon. Baseball taught me that there is always another opportunity as long as you're playing. You just have to be ready.
I felt a similar nervousness back then as I do now. That nervousness pushed me to go all out in my preparation for that next opportunity. Back then, it was time spent in the batting cage, watching game film, and practicing on the field. Today's parallel is reading books, communicating with my team, and playing chess with my ideas. As Andy Grove from Intel once said, only the paranoid survive. I am one paranoid MFer.
Later in the year, I came up to bat in a critical situation against the same team. We were down by one run in the 9th inning, and making an out would mean losing the game.
The stakes were high; we were tied in the standings, and a win would put us in first place in our conference with only 3 weeks until the playoffs.
On the mound stood their best pitcher. A tall, lanky guy whose arm felt like a slingshot coming at you (he is actually in the MLB now). I don't recall the at-bat vividly, but I remember I was up to bat with a runner in scoring position and a chance to tie or win the game. I also had two strikes. I knew the slider was coming. I hung in there and caught enough of the barrel to poke the ball into right field. The baserunner at 2nd base zoomed around the bases to score. Tied game. I was on top of the world. The next batter hit a ball off the wall, winning the game. I came around the bases, and after seeing the winning run score, I jumped with joy to celebrate with my teammates. As I jumped, I felt a familiar pop in my knee. The same one I felt 6 years earlier when I tore my ACL in high school. It was the highest point in my career, followed by the lowest. Over the next month, I watched my team win the conference title without me and sat on the bench as we played my school's first regional in 25 years. A sold-out crowd aired on ESPN. Failure strikes once more.
Yesterday, after our "launch presentation," I noticed that we had our first five paying customers… A few hours later, I noticed that our payments weren't working, and these customers got paid plans for free.
Putting your work out to the world is nerve-wracking. It's your internal hopes and dreams on display. When you succeed, it gives you a rush that I can't describe with mere words. When you fail, a gut-wrenching cocktail of chemicals passes through your body. And the nervousness in between, oh, the nervousness. It is filled with small doses of both the success and failure elixirs.
Here are some thoughts:
'Am I good enough?'
'Will I get a scholarship?'
'Will I play professionally?'
These thoughts took up most of my headspace between games. They are now replaced by thoughts like
Will people use the app?
Will I earn money from it?
Will it achieve 'product market fit'?
Nervousness and doubt are inevitable. It is part of the human journey. One hack that has helped me tame these beasts is to visualize answering these thoughts in a positive way. When I played baseball, I would visualize myself hitting a home run or playing professionally. Now, I visualize looking at my bank account with a monstrous number on it or leading successful launches like yesterday. Nervous energy doesn't have to be a bad thing.
I know our app
Will be scrutinized
Will have bugs
Will crash
Will have failed features
But I know that to succeed, I must
Stay in the game
Stay healthy
Stay motivated
Get 1% better each day
Because I know that new opportunities will present themselves every day. I only have to be prepared to take them.
Just like baseball.
