41

One of my favorite communication tools is the retrospective, as it’s a way to capture what was accomplished during a specific period. Today is my 41st birthday, thus a perfect time to reflect back on the past year.

What I did:

• Welcomed the beautiful Eleanor Jane Judge into the world on March 19th
• Left my job on March 31st, closing the chapter on the company I cofounded long ago
• Celebrated my son Jack’s 7th birthday, my son Caelin’s 5th birthday and my daughter Evie’s 3rd birthday
• Walked 781 miles over 1.6M steps
• Ran 94 miles
• Rode 3,881 miles
• Built Trackernaut to help me aggregate and report on the data above
• Helped the good folks at Earth Class Mail re-kick their business post bankruptcy by launching a new marketing site, creating a new customer acquisition strategy, cutting over to new billing, customer support, and content management systems, plus other growth oriented projects
• Helped coach baseball and soccer (2x)
• Taught 11 kids how to ride a bike with my friend Peter (I’ve dubbed this program Kids Love Bikes)
• Created Bright Labs, Inc. in order to start working on Bright, a new product to help SaaS companies quickly understand and optimize customer acquisition, recurring revenue and more (beta testing started in January — woot woot!)
• Rode in the Banff GranFondo, North Shore Century, Apple Cider Century, and Levi’s GranFondo
• Vacationed in Alberta, Canada, with my family and friends (we loved it — felt like Colorado, but with less people and more bears)
• Celebrated the 11th anniversary with my amazing wife Erin. We also hit a steady cadence in date nights, averaging one per week.
• Skied in Breckenridge, CO with my boys
• Visited San Francisco for the SaaStr Annual conference in February. I met and reconnected with many great people.
• Built a computer with my boys

What I didn’t do:

• Apply to YC. I started putting together the intro video and wasn’t happy with how I was conveying Bright’s value. I started reading up on their preference for multiple founders (which makes sense) and decided to punt on the submission. Looking back, this was a mistake as you never know what could happen. The rule of showing up.
• Spend time with my parents. I saw my mother 3–4 times, but didn’t get a chance to see my father. My father hasn’t even met my two daughters. This is a wrong that I’m going to right.

A friend once told me that he had always loved March fourth because the date is so expressive. I’m proud of the past year and excited for the next. March forth!