The man on the bench

Sitting on a bench late morning on Wellington St, on the edge of the Perth CBD, I was wearing sunglasses so no one could see I was crying. A grown man, staring at a construction site, crying tears of frustration, anger and desperation.

It was sometime in 2018. We'd been in business for a bit over two years. I'd just stormed out of our King St office after a discussion with my sister, Anna, who was our Marketing Manager at the time. I had taken it out on her that I felt no one else cared whether the company survived or thrived.

That was clearly not true. We had, and still have, a fantastic team. I knew it then and I know it now. I count myself lucky to have hired such intelligent, hard-working people, and Facilitate could never have achieved what it has without their brilliance and passion.

So why did I feel that way?

Being a solo founder is not for the faint of heart. I've always considered myself stoic, able to grit my teeth and persevere through whatever it takes to reach a goal. But running a business before product-market fit, struggling to make sales, desperately needing to pay salaries and bills, waking at 4am night after night, with traction always just out of reach, becomes soul-crushingly debilitating. Enough to reduce a 35-year-old man to tears in public. And not just once.

Why am I telling you this now?

Because today marks ten years since I established Facilitate's corporate entity, Unleashed VR. A decade of building, testing, learning, failing, pivoting, winning and, yes, some crying. And because if I could go back and tell that man on the bench one thing, it would be this:

Your business becomes nothing if you don't look after your health, mental and physical. Prioritise yourself. Get sleep. Exercise every day, ideally in the morning, so you start each day from the strongest place you can. Learn to say no to anything that can be delegated or deleted. There are countless things a founder has to stay on top of. These are a few that hold everything else up.

Happy birthday, Unleashed VR. And thank you to the rock stars who have contributed to everything we've achieved over the past decade. You know who you are.