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So, after all of this hoopla about me “stepping back” and getting out of the way of production, it has been a fairly smooth transition. Thanks go to both Event Seek’s and Hashrocket’s teams, but mostly to the respective production managers, Tristan and Rein.

To give it bit of background, we’re now in our third week of full-scale production and we’ve had a few hiccups in the first two weeks, but are settling in. After two weeks, it was clear to both Tristan and I that we weren’t building at a speed which would allow us to hit expected milestones and goals. Obviously this was incredibly disappointing to us and something we had to remedy right away (we’re not made of funding). As a young CEO, I really had a few options:

• Get on the phone with Rein and hoot and holler that they need to work faster
• Get on the phone with Rein’s boss and hoot and holler that they need to work faster
• Threaten to stop the project, not pay my bills, etc.
• Give my production manager (Tristan) a few days to create a plan to get us back on schedule

In keeping with the “stepped back” Connor, we chose the fourth option.  You know what happened?  Exactly what needed to. 

I came to work Monday morning to a full status assessment - a complete an honest review of our progress so far, identification of the major issues that had plagued us, and simple next steps to remedy the situation.  I should comment this wasn’t halfway done either.  This was exhaustive and brutally honest.  Tristan had spent a significant amount of time talking with Rein (their production manager) about the progress, the issues, and how to get back on track.  Together they were able to identify the issues and develop a plan to overcome them.

The really cool thing about working with talented motivated individuals is that even though you know they are good and you have high expectations from them - they can exceed those high expectations.  

Obviously we’ll continue to track our progress and have honest reviews of where we are, but we’re already getting back on track.  Who’s ready for Event Seek Private Alpha testing?  Counting the weeks…

Posted by: connor.fee

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