It feels like a long time ago and simultaneously yesterday when we had the idea to create Straightface. We started Straightface with a dream to make it easier for Kiwis to have a great shave. We thought that was a small but important piece of self-care that we could help support.
There is an expression that you never do what you think you can do in a year but you can do way more than you think you can in five years. I find this very accurate. I thought we would have done more and less.
It's Challenging
This was and is my first business and with anything, there is a large difference between theory and practice. This chasm leads me to being very critical of myself. I would love to say that the business has been a roaring success and that I do Straightface full time. However, I can't say that, I still work a full time job and work on Straightface after work and the weekends.
Marketing has been a real challenge. It is a near area for me and it is still a learning curve that I am frantically trying to climb.
We are growing, which is good, but not fast enough, but what is fast enough really?
Positives
I could spend a lot of time thinking about the things that haven't worked as well as I would have liked, and there are lots of them 😜, but I can also look at some positive things too.
With all the Kiwi's signing up we would have helped them have over 100000 shaves. For me a great shave can lead to over 100000 first impressions, smiles, or connections. Maybe even a shave or two for a first date so maybe we could have helped lead to some relationships, maybe there is a Straightface baby out there somewhere?
With our desire to reduce our harm on the planet, we have helped save NZ lots of extra plastic in our rubbish with the use of card board and using carbon neutral couriers.
We hope we have had a positive impact on the lives of the people that join Straightface.
Moment of Gratitude
I had a career ending ankle injury. It causes me different challenges depending on the day. It is very sneaky. With covid and not being able to go to the gym, it hasn't been an ideal environment to keep the ankle as good as it can be.
This week in the gym, after trying some new strategies to work with and around my bad ankle, I am feeling stronger than I have in a while.
It can be a very demoralizing feeling being somewhat trapped in your body that you know can move so much better but has a severely limiting factor, i.e my terrible ankle.
So it feels good to move some weight and feel a little more one with my body.
Shave well, be awesome, keep working hard.
Luke
