‘Swing and a miss... [Captain's Log]
You can’t win every week. But you can certainly learn from each one.
“Captain’s Log” is a series where I share a snapshot of how things are progressing across the ministry. Subscribe for the latest with Lightworks!
Captain’s log, stardate: April 28, 2022
Sometimes you swing and you miss. That’s normal. But it isn’t easy.
This week has been quite a few failed attempts and false-starts. We started out strong, aiming to nail down the design of our website and start building out our product MVP. But we ran into more than a few road-bumps along the way.
On the website front, we thought we had a simple task: get our website layout & text to about 75% completion in time for a conversation with a partner that’s an expert in brand websites. Turns out, the layout and text we developed completely fell flat and just didn’t work.
Through the conversation, it quickly became apparent that we had fallen into the same trap that we always tell teams to watch out for: don’t assume what you want is the same thing your users want. Version 1 of our website content focused on telling the story of Lightworks in a unique, compelling and articulate way. But is that why people would come to our website? What would our target audience want to see?
Not sure. Welp, back to the drawing board we go.
At least we were able to adjust course before investing a lot more time and energy to publish a website that wouldn’t have been helpful. And I’m so glad we had a trusted friend and partner that we could speak with bold honesty.
On the product front, we were aiming to start building out our MVP. Step 1 was a “scoping” conversation to determine how big or small our MVP would be, and ensure we knew what we were hoping to learn from releasing an MVP. As we got into the conversation, we recognized just how many different assumptions we both had coming into the discussion, which yielded a lot of “conversation”.
Being able to work through differing opinions is critical to any team, and this week required some of that hard work. I’m really proud of how we engaged the conversation though. In the end, I think we landed on a much better and clearer process for product development. This article about the three kinds of product “fit” was an extremely helpful reminder in the conversation as well. After our last round of research, we think we've accomplished Problem-Solution Fit, and are now working towards Product-Market Fit with this initial MVP.
Not every week will be a home-run week. That's the way life works. But I will say, taking the time to review the past week for this post certainly has given me a more positive view of the week though. It definitely speaks to the value of taking time to gain perspective. In the grand scheme of a month, quarter or year, you can’t win every single week — but you can learn every step of the way. And I’m glad I can say that this week was filled with quality lessons learned.
Highs:
What did I consider wins from this past week?
Came to a better understanding of the value-prop design process than either of us had before, and got to much clearer product development process.
Roughed out a 1-page business plan for the ministry overall. There’s still a lot to test and try, but I’m excited for the clarity this brought. Especially that it’s a sharable asset with key partners.
Lows:
What did I consider losses from the past week?
Lightworks ministry website draft v1 was the completely wrong direction. Time for a hard pivot for the sake of clarity and helpfulness.
Product MVP scoping took far longer than we initially anticipated. Have a few more predicate steps to finish before we start building to ensure we build the right things, and know what & how we will learn from what we build.
Looking Ahead:
What’s coming up? Where are we heading / aiming?
See last week’s post.
Prayer Requests:
How can you be praying for us?
Would welcome your prayers as we head to central CA for an urgent trip to visit Leah’s ailing grandmother who's now on hospice. Thankful for the chance to go, but it’ll be a hard trip. Taking our 9 month daughter is a unique challenge in the mix as well. Pray for opportunities to shine the light of Jesus to her family.
Pray for God to remove road-blocks. Seemed like no matter what we tried this week, there was a road-block around every corner. Ultimately, I have to trust that this is all entirely in God’s timing. But I’d welcome your prayers to remove roadblocks along the way. I don’t know that I’d call this spiritual warfare, but it definitely seems like someone is trying to slow us down with logistical headaches each day.
Thank you for your prayers and following this journey! It’s a tedious road, but we’re still trusting God will accomplish what He’s set out to do. We just want to be obedient to follow Him in His ways every step of the way.
