No Forecast

For the last few years of my career, a big part of my job was predicting the future.

As AppTweak grew from a startup into a scale-up, forecasting became a serious discipline. Every quarter, I had to know where we'd land - pipeline, renewals, the deals that would close and the ones that would slip. Leadership, the board, the team: everyone looked at that number. Being roughly right wasn't good enough. You were expected to know.

It was a learning curve, and over the last year or two it became a real routine. The control freak in me liked it. The startup person in me sometimes struggled - every hour spent analyzing and reporting felt like an hour not spent doing and fixing things. But I learned that if you want to pilot correctly, you need the right instruments.

Four months after leaving, I have no forecast.

I don't know which of the conversations I'm having will turn into something, and which will just be a lovely coffee. When people ask me what's next - and they ask a lot - the honest answer is: I don't know yet.

Don't get me wrong, I do have a plan. I have a strong ambition to build the life I want: being financially comfortable, making time for myself and my family, and enjoying life as much as I can (which is highly likely your plan too).

How I get there is still to be determined. I'll probably keep investing in startups and scale-ups, and keep growing my advisory work: one-on-one mentoring and helping startups with their go-to-market and sales. On top of that, I want to keep investing in the stock market, continue exploring real estate, and find other ways to build long-term wealth. What I don't know is whether, six months from now, I'll meet someone with an amazing idea and want to go all in. Or get a job offer I didn't see coming - I don't think so, but who knows?

In sales terms, I have a target. I just don't have a forecast.

Funnily enough, it reminds me of the early years at AppTweak. Back then, we had a plan too, but we adapted it constantly. There was a lot of uncertainty. We tried a lot of things, said yes to a lot, and pushed until we knew what worked and what didn't. You can't forecast something you've never done. You have to go and find out. In a way, I feel like I'm back in the startup stage - except this time, the company is me. And I love it.

But a conversation I had this week made me think about plans a little differently.

I met a founder who built his e-commerce business from scratch. It's working. He did what he set out to do. Now it's time to scale, and he feels stuck. He loves starting things, building something from nothing - but the next stage isn't what he wants. What struck me most was that he'd followed his plan perfectly. It had just led him somewhere he no longer wanted to be.

I don't think his plan was wrong. It was right for the person he was when he made it. But the person making the next decision had changed, and the plan hadn't changed with him.

I kept thinking about that afterward. We spend a lot of time planning for the lives we want - the next promotion, the next milestone, the next stage of the business. And when we finally get there, we don't always stop to ask whether we still want what comes next. We assume that because we wanted it before, we should keep wanting it. That because we've invested so much in a direction, we should keep going.

I'm not saying planning is a bad thing. I've spent enough years in sales to know what happens when nobody has a plan. But I'm starting to see a difference between knowing what you want and knowing exactly how you'll get there. I know what I want. I just don't want to confuse the route with the destination.

So I'm focusing on what I can actually control. I say yes to a lot. I try to be fully present in every conversation, and I take two minutes after each one to ask myself what I learned and where it fits. I protect my weekends with my wife and family. And I keep learning - two months into angel investing, I'm already seeing things I couldn't see at the start.

What I can't control is when the right person or the right project shows up.

I'd love to tell you I'm completely at peace with that. I'm not, not yet. Some days the control freak in me still wants a spreadsheet with all the answers. But I'm learning to make room for not knowing. Some of the best things that happened in my career were never in anyone's forecast - least of all mine.

In a forecast, anything you can't predict is a risk. In a life, it might be the best part.

What would change if you stopped trying to forecast your next chapter?

See you next Friday, -Laurie 🤍