Our Startup Story

Hi, I’m Dusty Candland, husband, father, software developer, and entrepreneur. And now, blogger for Our Startup Story! I’m going to be sharing my experiences starting up and working with startups.

I started working full time for myself this year. I did have one large client ready to start work, so I wasn’t starting completely from scratch. I like building web applications and being a part of growing businesses. With that in mind, I decided my target clients would be other startups with web based technology of some kind. I help these clients build out their web applications. Anyway, here’s a look at where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Some thoughts about how this year has gone.

My target clients, startups, can be a hard target. Most don’t have a ton of money lying around and want to make sure they are spending it wisely. Plus they can be hard to find.

Selling is hard. Especially when talking to people is hard. I need to get better at that, and I have been, but I have a ways to go. My first step was to just get to events and talk to the people there. It seems crazy when writing this, but I really have to try to be extroverted.

I’ve found keeping my focus is harder on my own, partly because I don’t have a set schedule or place to work. Also, partly because there is a ton of stuff that I’m interested in. I’ve recently heard a good tip about time boxing tasks and sticking to it, I’m going to give that a try for a while.

I’ve mostly been going this alone, I have advisers that help a ton, but no one to help keep focus and motivation on a daily basis. I really think that is key, but I’ve also found that finding partners is a hard task. I thought working at a co-working space would help me feel connected and social, but I’m not so sure now.

Some thoughts about next year.

I’ve outlined some specific offerings for startups that I think will help show value to prospects. Offering open ended custom software development is good, but too large and scary for many.

I have to get better at talking with and meeting people. I need to find a ToastMasters club and just get over my fears of public speaking. That’s going to be a top goal for this next year. This is critical to the success of any startup, I know it, however, doing it is what matters. Suggestions welcome.

I’ve tried to keep some time set aside for working on my own projects. I plan to keep doing this and think it’s critical to keeping sharp and up to date with technology.

I want to help grow the startup community in Denver. There is an awesome community in Boulder and I think there should be an awesome community in Denver as well. I hope to help get it there.

I hope you’ve found this review interesting and maybe helpful! If you want to learn more about me or my company checkout my web application consulting site and my software development blog. I’ll be contributing here once or twice a month.

The first rule of fight club is you do not talk about fight club.

Well that might be the case with regards to any fight club but it’s certainly not the case when it comes to your idea about a project, website, or startup you want to work on. One of the first things I learned in the startup community is that if you think you are the only one in the world working on this ”Top Secret” project, then you are not giving proper credit to the other 5 people that have the same idea and are working on it.

The one thing that does matter and separates you from the other 5 people, is how you execute your idea. It is important to discuss your idea to anyone that will listen and give you feedback. After listening to Co-Founder and CEO Alex White of NBS (Next Big Sound) talk at an event in early November at the Techstars Bunker, he had this amazing idea about what he wanted to do but was afraid that if he shared his idea about NBS then people would take it and run with it. He kept his project under lock and key for 3 years while trying to decide how to move on it and in what direction he would take. He finally approaced some local friendly contacts at the University he was attending and decided to ask them for their input. As it turned out the 2 people he talked with in the beginning ended up becoming Co-Founders of NBS. Alex mentioned to the group that he wished he had been more open about sharing the idea because he would have been 3 years ahead of where NBS is today.

I mention this because if you think that you can’t share your idea unless you have someone sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) then be prepared to sit and wait a long time until someone takes you seriously. If you have an idea and your not really sure who to talk to about it or your immediate network of friends are not familiar with the startup industry, then here are some possible resources for you to use: reach out to your friend’s networks, use LinkedIn to connect with people, attend local events by searching Meetup , or even consider attending on of the StartupWeekend events. Remember an idea is only an idea unless you do something with it.

i saw this and thought it was it an interesting list. With very little budget, beyond what I spend on Google adwords (Not a huge pay off, but does get a few registrations) and some moo cards from time to time, the marketing budget for 360|Conferences is very much bootstrapped.

The twitter rule is a big one. I manage about 7 twitter accounts. tweeting discount codes, RT’ing things I think the communities those accounts care about would be interested in, etc. It’s damn near a fulltime job on it’s own. but it does pay off over time. It’s not huge, or fast, but when looked at cumulatively, it’s a steady building wave. The more I tweet, the more people RT, the more widespread the message gets. For events, it’s especially important to leverage the network effect. the 360flex account has about 1500 followers, each of those has their own number, etc. so each person who helps spread the word, has near infinite reach.

#5 is something I need to do better at. I’ve got awesome friends, who introduce me to new people when we’re out. They do a great job of talking up the particular conference they’re tied to, but then it’s my turn and I nod, agree with their statements, and maybe add something boring. I’m working on that aspect. Not quite an elevator pitch, but a short burst of “Why you should be attending as well”

#6 is timely. We started video taping sessions this past spring. They’re very successful, each is $3.50 there’s currently a buy 5 get 1 free deal, and they’re selling pretty well. Not paying my phone bill, but covering hosting, etc and giving me lunch and beer money. Which is great since even if I’m at an even keel, that’s better than spending what little I have. We’re already planning to increase the video quality for the fall events, by buying some HD flip cams. Not everything this time will be HD, but we’re phasing out SD.

We’re also going to get more testimonial, man on the floor type video this fall, to produce some fun/cool videos to show people why they should be at 360|events.

#7 I think we came close to pioneering :) We reach out to our speakers to help get the word out. We don’t demand it, but we ask each one to help make noise, help raise awareness, etc. After all people pay more attention to the speakers, they’re big names in the communities, well connected, etc. When they speak people listen. It works really well. Leveraging their names, and fame to help increase attention on the event, is a big boost.

#10 is a tough one for me. As a developer and person who’s on lots of lists, every email campaign I create I have a mental block to get past of “is this too much?” For the most part, and this was awesome advice from Liz.. Go just past your comfort zone on sending emails. If you think you’re getting close to annoying, you can probly send one more email. Our own filters are naturally strong, so it’s tough to reach past them. But it’s true. My mailing lists for the most part grow weekly/monthly as I send out more and more interesting things.

What works for you? Leave a comment, share your thoughts.

Some dude I’ve never heard of, has 8 words that are the secret of success. They’re below with my thoughts on them. I found them over on Small Biz Bee.

1. Passion – Duh. If you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, why are you doing it. I’ve found (although i never would have guessed it) that I’m passionate about bringing people together, helping people meet, creating an atmosphere were great things are born.

2. Work – Yeah it’s work. Doing what you love feels less like work, but it’s still work, it’s still hard. Possibly harder than a “job” since failure is on you, you don’t just punch a clock go home, and not care.

3. Focus – This is hard. Tom and I have struggled with this. We’ve been lured to Europe earlier than we probably should have (though we learned good lessons there). We’ve tried to expand into things without looking, etc. Focus is important it’s something I’m trying to get a better grasp on.

4. Persist – I can’t agree more. It’s hard, at least weekly I wonder if I should fold up. Do our last two events and try to find a job. It’s hard, we’re not making much right now, though I feel that’s on the verge of changing, i know it is, but i’m in the now financially, which is tough. I know though, if I persist and work hard and as Gary Vee would say, “Crush It” I’ll succeed.

5. Ideas - This is the fun part. I’m usually not short on ideas. Ditching paper surveys, USB Drives instead of CDs, an AIR app for surveys, etc. It’s fun to think of ways to 1. be a better company, and 2. innovate the completely whacked out, old school conference business. Some ideas are awesome, some, not so much. Tom and I are at our absolute best when we’re throwing ideas at each other, sharing the “Ah snap! That’s awesome!” moments.

6. Good – This is important. Tom is a bible thumper :) I’m not, but I do believe in Karma, and we both agreed, even before we had money to give that we’d make sure we gave 20% of each event’s profit to charity. Whether it’s a check, or service, or something else. We agreed, and as Tom moves on I intend to continue the tradition, that 10% goes to the community out event serves, and 10% will be to a charity making the world a better place. I firmly believe that any business not doing good for the world around it, isn’t doing enough. We haven’t always been in a position to write a check, and it makes us sad, but when we are, it’s the best feeling on Earth.

7. Push – This is tough. My wife pushes me. She pushes me because she wants to see me succeed, and she pushes me because she wants the company to make money so we can pay the bills. Both are incredibly important. I also push myself, for both of those reasons, but also I push myself (And I push Tom for a few more months) because I think we’re doing a good thing, and I want to continue to do that good thing.

8. Serve – Easy. Tom and I have never lost sight of who we serve. We serve two masters; sponsors, and attendees. Sponsors pay us to get in front of our attendees, to meet them, to introduce them to their product or service. Sometimes they sponsor just to help the community. But we owe it to them to make the event the best it can be, have the most attendees we can, etc. The attendees on the other hand, pay us to see and hear the speakers, to meet the rest of the community, and to learn. We owe it to them to make sure the event delivers all that and more. It’s not always easy, but we’ve never lost sight of why we do events. We do them to serve the community with something we believe it lacked. We’ll continue to serve them, until they tell us otherwise :)

I’m not sure these were necessarily secrets, but they’re truths for sure. At least in my opinion. What do you think? Are there more? Are there other ‘secrets’ you think valuable?

Watch the video it’s a good use of 3 minutes. My take away. Success is charging people $4000 to attend an event, that they they have to be invited to… ok it’s not, but damn talk about reinforcing “A fool and his money…”

Jeff tweeted about this, and I had to write a post about it.

I had no idea this group/organization existed, but Philly Startup Leaders has a video  series (6 deep at the moment)

I just started watching the videos, which I plan to rip and put on my iPod (sorry youtube, but these are gonna be gold mines I’ll want offline), but what’s nice it’s not your typical tech startup schmoes talking about how great they are, how hard it is, how cash flow something to worry about tomorrow, etc.

These videos talk about real entrepreneurship (IMO), not just the sexy tech startup stuff.

Great find Jeff!

I love creating things, writing software was for a long time very fulfilling. The thought however of doing a software startup, doesn’t do much for me now. Or rather, me being the code writer doesn’t. Which poses interesting problems.

360|Conferences, Corp is a purely service business. Our offering is our abilities, our community, and ourselves. That’s it. No app, no website, no SAAS, nothing that can be bought, sold, or processed. (bonus points if you got that)

We can’t attract investment capital in the traditional tech start up way, since we don’t have any ‘out’ or clear return. To quote David Cohen (whom I hope to meet in person one day!) “i think raising money right now, especially for a business that doesn’t have the best scale economics, is just tough. there’s not much debt money available. ”

Our business however, works like any other, we require capital to continue, we’re bootstrapping, and that get’s us sorta kinda by, but the reality is we need capital like any other start up business that needs to expand it’s offerings. It’s quite the conundrum to be sure.

It’s one of those weird start up problems, that I never really thought about in starting on this adventure. We figured bootstrapping would be just fine, but in actually executing on our business we’ve found that we’re at a place where we can’t easily do more events without the free time of paying ourselves, but we can’t pay ourselves full time (or even part time) without doing more events.

I re-stumbled across this blog post and it gave me some hope, I think our ’13 months’ is a bit longer than 13 real calendar months since our events are spaced apart and there’s low periods.

I think 360|Confferences is at this tipping point right now, we just have to hold on. Hope we can.

Lemme rephrase that title:  Starting up for over 2+ years is hard for a tinkerer.

I’ll be honest, because I’m a horrible liar.  Conferences are fun.  Conference planning is even more fun.  However, I will never see myself as a professional conference planner, no matter how many shows I do.  It’s just not in my makeup.  Yeah, I like the social aspects of it.  Yeah, I like tracking the money in and money out.  However, when it comes down to it.  I really just like the people and making sure they’re taken care of.

I’ve been working the biz for 2 years now.  I’ve also worked a FT job during that same time frame.  In addition to these 2 FT jobs, I have 2 boys to raise, a wife to love and a faith to keep active in.  As you can imagine, that doesn’t leave much time to tinker.

Last week, I had an internal breakdown.  No one knew about it.  Not my business partner, though it shouldn’t have been a surprise.  My wife found out a few days later.  Only a close friend of mine, Daniel Brunk, knows the full details of what went down.  The gist of it was though, my spirit cracked.  Not my religious spirit or ghost like thing floating inside me.  No, no, I mean more like “the little 3 yr old inside me that likes to tinker” spirit.

You see, a lot of stuff happened this past 2 months, personal stuff that just left me with no free time at all.  I’ve had 0 time to tinker and for me, that’s rough.  Very, very rough.  So rough in fact, that I was very close to walking away from the biz.  Mentally, I was minutes away from walking away and not looking back.

It seems sorta silly now looking back, and surely for those of you looking in from the outside.  But for those of you in my situation, I can see that spark of understanding in your eyes.  I can feel you relating to my pain. It seems odd that a thing like tinkering can break an entrepreneur’s spirit more so than finances, inventory, products, or any of the countless other facets of business.

So how did I overcome it?  At the moment of breaking, I played loud music really loud on the headphones.  LOL  In the following days though, I worked my tinkering into the business.  Some businesses expand for global dominance.  Some expand to take out competition.  We’re expanding for more steady income.  Now though, more importantly, we’re also expanding so I can tinker.

The Kindle of my tinkering

John and I have Kindles now.  (Well, actually, I have both, but I’ll give John his tomorrow.)  I’m a huge book guy, so I wasn’t sure I was going to like it.  I have to admit though, I LOVE it.  It’s been allowing me to satisfy my desire to tinker as well as use my time exploring new business ideas.  (You can read my personal post on the Kindle experience for more details.)

Some may see the $800 as wasteful spending on eToys for two geeky founders ($400 per person for a kindle and case).  I’m sure there is some truth to that.  We do have plans that may include the Kindle though, so it’s not pure fun.  More importantly though, this $800 has probably saved the company, because a disgruntled founder is not a productive one.  When 1/2 of a 2 man team putters out, you can rest assured that no good will come of that.

Therefore, if your a tinkerer (like me) and have been starting up for a few years (like me), look for ways to expand.  Don’t go waaaay off course.  Find something that makes sense for your business, but is something fresh.  Then go ahead and spend a little cash to let you tinker.  Trust me, it’ll be worth every penny you spend.  If you check out and possibly get a Kindle, click here and support a struggling entrepeneur.  :)

I moved the first of February.  I had this dream:  I’ll get to Arizona, setup shop in about a week and then I can get cranking.  I’ll be able to work on the business, doing the stuff we’ve always wanted to do, while moonlighting on some Flex projects.

Life is funny.  Business is funny.  Neither really seem to care much about plans.

In the past 2 months, I’ve met and hired an attorney, moved homes twice and gone to the courthouse 3 times before settling a case with our slumlord.  That was just the life side of things.

My moonlighting didn’t really happen as quickly as I would’ve liked.  There was a learning curve, that was hampered by the fact that I was thinking a Jira assigned to me was in one area of the app, while I was being told it was in another area.  (That turned out to be a good thing though, as I learned more of the app than I would’ve if we were in sync.)  I finally got some good time to finish getting up to speed, when I did a 4 day on-site pit stop before our March event.  Once I got back home, I pulled off my first 16-hour day in a looooong time, working until like 2 am even.  The result: the project is fun but life and unforeseen business work detracted from my planned arrangement.

On the business side, our sites were hacked, so we tried everything under the sun to get them up and running.  The last ditch effort was to move off of our current cohost to another.  In addition to that, we switched from the blogger platform to the WordPress platform.  This entailed me learning how to write WP themes and converting our old themes so our customers wouldn’t notice anything.  I also had to wrap up our finances from 2008.  (One word of advice: avoid Google Checkout if you can cuz importing that data into Quickbooks is a pain in the butt.)

The one thing we did manage to do that we “wanted to do” was expand the business.  We launched 360|iDev, our iPhone/iTouch developer conference.  It was well-received by the iPhone development community.  By comparison, it was “easy” compared to the rest of what was going down in life.  Sadly, I was hedging that a potential partner was going to be coming on board.  They did…sorta, on the Friday before the show.  By then, it was too late so we never signed the contract.  The buzz I was looking for them to help gen never occurred and so we had a roughly $10K deficit.

Whether it’s life, hackers, prepping for taxes, or a partnership not coming through, you see that a bajillion things outside your control can and do affect your business.  It can be very disheartening.  From what I can tell though, it’s the norm.  LOL

Therefore, if you have a startup and are wondering if everyone’s non-biz stuff is as crazy as yours, I hope this proves it is.  Welcome to the party!  :)

Jeffrey posted his 7 sins of success, and they really hit home.

Gluttony

This one I find I’m ok with, mainly because I don’t take on too much. If there’s one thing I’m acutely aware of it’s my limitations, and how much I can take on. I find at 31 (hell at 21) I don’t have the energy for all nighters, and working like crazy all weekend. I’ve come to terms with it, and try to only take on what I can accimplish inhe hours I’m awake. So far so good.

Greed

This one I find myself struggling a bit with, but Jeffrey’s advice is spot on. My wife and I have an idea, and I’ve been trying to vet it to see if it actually makes sense. One opinion so far, that it doesn’t. I’m not 100% convinced yet, but open to feedback.

Sloth

This one Tom and I struggle mightily with. We seem to go in fits and starts, where one of us is super motivated for a week, firing emails like crazy, making calls, etc then there’s a lull of a week or two where the business seems to be the lowest thing on the priority list, sadly. I’m not a slow and steady person, but I am a moderately fast and steady person, so Tom and butt heads often as our two motivation/energy levels don’t often mesh.

Lust

Tom may see it differently but this is a big one. There’s tasks that each of us don’t like to do, and fall squarely to the other. It mostly works, until one of us suffers a Sloth moment, then that set of tasks doesn’t get done. Be it blogging, replying to emails, invoicing sponsors, paying vendors, etc. It sucks for sure.It’s frustrating when we don’t send invoices that will be net 30, or don’t follow up on emails and stuff, it’s one of my hugest pain points in our model.

Once we’re our own FTE’s I hope, this problem fades, my fingers are crossed.

Pride

Not a problem for us. It was earlier and who knows may come back, but right now, it’s not a proble. Italy taught us that “we are not as hot as we thought”. We thought our brand would precede us across the pond, and found that while a few knew who we were, most did not. The community wasn’t big enough or interested enough in us, and overall we just got our teeth kicked in. It was one of the best learning experiences we’ve had so far.

Wrath

Tom is a planner too. I’m not, not much at least. I’m more of a “set the larger plan, and move towards it”. Some of our biggest fights have been around this. Tom wants to plan, so he tries to extract a plan from me, which is about as easy as getting blood from a turnip. What sucks is without a plan, Tom get’s discouraged, and his work output drops to nil, and he’s in a funk.

I’m not complete anarchy mind you. I try to be about GTD, I use OmniFocus, but in general, for a phone call, I just do the call. If some new technology is available or something, i just try it. It’s the early adopter in me. Tom and I struggle with this since he’s more the “late, when it is free” adopter which I think doesn’t mesh much with being an entrepreneur. it’s tough some times.

Envy

From time to time, I find myself envying another event. Mainly it’s for their having more funds, or being FTE. But I’m working on realizing that in every case, they’ve been around a bit longer than me, and in every case, their event costs more, and offers less of what is important to me (and Tom), so it’s not a fair comparison. That helps, but I agree with Jeffrey, envy is the fast track to losing focus.

I also think there’s reverse envy. “we’re already better than X so let’s slow down and not innovate as much” which goes against my grain. I know being over innovative (over engineering) isn’t good, but I also know that when you slow down, and rest on your past successes, you’re over taken.

So those are my thoughts, I linked to Jeffrey’s, what’re yours? Have you experienced any in your startup?

Part of my goal is to do an almost diary-like coverage of me doing the startup.  Until February, I’ll still be part time on the biz and full time on my developer job.  I did, however, get a taste of what’s to come last week.

When John and I decided to do 360|iDev, we figured we should go to Macworld for a day.  We agreed to do a show and then 3 days later, Apple announced it was pulling out of Macworld.  We saw this as a great opportunity to talk to sponsors and developers to let them know that there’s a new show in town: ours.  John and I reg’d for the expo and John bought his ticket for Cali.  Now we needed a plan.  What would we do at the show?

John and I do one offline marketing campaign per 360|Flex.  We print up a bunch of oversized postcards and mail them out to Flex User Group Managers.  They hand out the fliers and we give them a free pass or two to raffle in exchange for them hyping the event.  It works out great for us and for the UGs as well. Then that’s it for marketing. We never really go anywhere to promote our show.  We never really pound the pavement so to speak.  We’re blessed to have a community that loves us, so word of mouth pretty much takes over from there. With 360|iDev, we realize that wasn’t going to happen.

When we did 360|Flex Europe, we assumed our US brand would carry over and we’d have to do little work.  We were wrong.  It hurt to be wrong, but we learned a valuable lesson: Don’t think you’re brand is as recognizable as Mickey Mouse.  Success in one market does not in any way, shape or form guarantee success in another market.

Therefore, for 360|iDev, we realized we’d have to do more.  We put in our order for our traditional oversized postcards for attendees, but our Daneen, our marketing gal, got smart.  She pointed out that it would be better to print the sponsor cards in a matching fashion vs a ghetto inkjet print job done at home.  With these two pieces of collateral, this time we’d have to hit the streets and find people to give them too.  Find people who would not only attend the show, but also possibly speak or sponsor.

Last Thursday, John and I walked into the Moscone Center with a handful of general info cards and sponsor cards.  We were walking towards the main expo hall.  Along the way, we passed tables full of attendees awaiting to get into the expo hall.  Initially, we walked right by them.  LOL  Like I said, John and I are new to this in-person sales stuff.  :)  It hit me, “Crap, we need to be giving these people the attendee fliers.”  I make John pull over, grab the fliers and turned to the people.

Now, the people were oblivious to me.  I was just another goob in a conference shirt (a 360|Flex polo) standing with fliers looking in their general direction.  I probably looked no different than any other Apple Fanboy standing around.  Inside though, was a whole different story.  I so desperately wanted to turn to John and say, “Here’s the fliers.  Go give ‘em out!”  It was that initial fear of rejection we all have regardless of what the task is.  The butterflies were a fluttering and the sweat glands were in the process of dumping all moisture they had in reserve.  I’m sure if I stood there much longer and doted on it, I would’ve not done anything.  I would’ve talked myself out of doing what we came to do: “These people probably aren’t even iPhone developers.  They wouldn’t want one of my fliers. I bet some might even get mad for me spamming them in person!”

After a few moments of inner arguing and turmoil, I said, “Oh shut up and suck it up will ya.  There’s work to do.”  With that I stepped to the nearest table and started handing out fliers.  I worked my way around to all the tables near the main expo hall.  There was maybe 40 of them spread about.  I walked up and dropped a handful of attendee fliers on the table.  I gave a smile to those that looked up at me.  You know what, not one person gave a bad vibe.  Quite a few actually said, “Thank you” as I put the fliers there.  “Thank you” is usually reserved for when you do something nice for a person, not when you’re trying to sell them something I thought.  Thing is though, if they are an iPhone developer or want to be one, they’d need some help getting their A-game on.  This conference of ours will help them do that.

I think that’s the aspect of sales I need to take more to heart.  Sales isn’t about being the sleazy used car salesman portrayed in movies.  Sales is all about attitude, which should one of helping.  John and I aren’t criminals taking people’s money and returning nothing in return.  In fact, we’re the opposite.  We take a lot less money than our competitors and we give as much, if not more, value than them in return.  We’re a value and we here to help our customers.  It is our duty as a business to make them aware of what we offer and how it can help them.  They, in turn, can then decide whether they see value in that offering.

After handing out the fliers to those on the tables, it become readily apparent to John and I that we grossly underestimated the amount of fliers we’d need.  Luckily, we had another 2800 back in John’s hotel room.  LOL  It was very cool to walk around and seeing people carrying/reading our postcards.  It gave a little more pep to our step as we hit the expo hall.

The expo would be a completely different beast.  Dropping the card on the tables involved a smile and fast movement.  In the expo hall, we’d need to sell the show.  Luckily, I had John with me.  I’m not quite sure how people start a business on their own. I’d be too scared to do most of the crap that’s needed.  John and I though, if nothing else, genuinely enjoy each others company.  We started out a bit timid.  As the day wore on though, we realized everyone was very positive about the show.  This lifted our spirits and helped us keep going after 6 hours of walkin around.  We did have two sour pusses: 1 – “What’s in it for me?” attitude from a marketing gal no less.  (I feel sorry for that company) and 1 – “Uh yeah, thanks.” as he folded up the flier to trash it.  The high points came when we approached vendors/dev shops and they already had our postcard from outside! w00t!!

By the end of the day, I was exhausted and exhilarated.  We talked to a ton of people and got the word out about 360|iDev.  It’s shaping up to be a great conference.  It was also a great preview of what’s to come for me.  Hitting a deadline for your FT job is a nice feeling, but nothing compares to working your butt off all day to support your own business.  If you haven’t tried it yet, you gotta do it.  I’m just sorta bummed I can’t do it again until the end of the month!