Baby on board and bumps on the road on the journey so far…

TLDR:

The startup rollercoaster is no joke

Put the startup between the rock and the hard place

The only thing that matters is paying the bills

Revenue progress and the road ahead…

The startup roller coaster is no joke

I was an anxious mess in November and December 2022. My firstborn son was due Christmas Day, Revonate was onboarding our second general contractor in Miami and I was terrified it would all go wrong while I was out of office.

One of the reasons I started a company was because I thought it would give me more control. It turns out that being a founder is a lot like being a parent, you could do everything right and still have a dud.

Putting the startup between the rock and the hard place

I don’t know how solo cofounders do it. At several points in the lifetime of the startup there will be a founder that is in a hard place and the other founder needs to be the rock.

Fortunately, despite my anxiety the birth went well; Rome is healthy and happy. I also found out that I have a half sister in the Netherlands while I was on paternity leave! Getting two new family members within a week is pretty cool.

Unfortunately though as I was rolling back into a routine in February my estranged father passed away and I had to go back to Queens to deal with family matters.

I sincerely appreciate Jefferson Sanchez being the rock and making sure the startup didn’t go stale while I was in a hard place.

What actually matters is paying the bills

One of the bigger drivers of my anxiety was my ability to provide for my son. I grew up “humble” and didn’t want my son living off tuna fish and cereal like I had to.

I’ve built a relatively successful career in SaaS sales leadership and even if I “just” landed a role as an account executive I’d likely make well into the six figures. But even if Revonate crushes it this year I wouldn’t be able to pay myself a salary like that anytime soon.

Fortunately, I’m not doing this alone. My wife has quickly become one of the highest producing sales people at MGM Grand and we started listing our casita as a short term rental property. Overall our collective income covers the bills and affords Rome a comfortable lifestyle.

Now that we have our bases covered, I can focus on building the business.

Revenue progress and the road ahead…

Jefferson was able to stand up a sales system in Hubspot managing two GC brands, generating leads online and producing almost $10M in construction project pipeline while I was on paternity leave for 2 months.

After throwing up goose eggs for way too long; in February we did $3,041 and March $6,152 in Revonate revenue. We currently have ~$100k in qualified pipeline equating to more than $3M in construction projects.

Revonate will have all its bills paid and growing profitably once we can maintain ~$20k in monthly revenue, which is roughly $400k in construction projects closed.

Until we hit that goal everything else is just noise.