I've Taken a 3-Week Break

& Why This Should be Part of Your Founder Strategy Too

This week, I started getting up at 5.30am again.

Cold shower.

Make my coffee.

Journal.

Sit at my desk.

90mins of really focused work before the rest of the family wakes up.

But still, I didn’t achieve much.

I haven’t created any real value.

Sure, I’ve been struggling with some technical challenges — reliably connecting my database to my next.js project, scraping relevant JSON data to create my baby product catalogue being two big ones.

BUT, the big thing that’s been missing from this product?

Excitement.

I’m not excited by this idea (Baby Travel: A blog on how to travel with your baby stress-free, plus a tool to create a bundle of relevant products to take with you on your trip. More on the strategy behind the idea here).

If I were primarily motivated by making money, then maybe I would be (I still think this is a great business opportunity).

Or if I had the fire I had 5-6 years ago to achieve my first real business success, then maybe I’d be excited.

But I’m not.

So, what should I do?

I think it’s time to move on.

To zoom out before zooming in again.

To re-ignite my passion for building startups.

Because, otherwise?

I’ll remain stuck, lacking momentum & motivation.

Because it’s not just technical challenges.

It’s getting myself to do the boring work (writing articles about travelling with a baby, or finding the right 50-60 products to list on the catalogue).

Or reaching out to partners to build SEO backlinks (& boost Baby Travel in Google’s rankings).

Plus I’m not that confident I can actually deliver enough value for first-time parents to use this product (i.e. make it better than simply browsing for baby travel products on Amazon).

If I’m not energised by that work, I’m just not gonna get it done.

So for now?

1. I’m taking this & next week off

2. I’m then on holiday in Sri Lanka for 10 days

3. The only thing I will do work-related is generating new ideas

4. I’ll then come back, hit the ground running with one of those ideas

5. I’ll then get that (Startup 4/12) live by the end of November

Until then,

Henry