In this episode, I am joined by Joel Burgess, Founder and CEO of Nutrifix. Joel is building an app that puts healthy on the map. His mission is to help people lead healthier lives by allowing them to locate the best places to eat and select the best choices from the menu according to their own unique nutritional requirements. This episode is an absolute goldmine for entrepreneurs, offering advice and insight into mindset and working practices, hiring strategy and team building, and how to (and how not to) build an awesome app. There are lessons about balancing optimism and patience, about proactively structuring and organising your day and about maintaining a healthy work-life balance. There is also invaluable insight into how to hire the right people and build the right company culture. Joel has also grappled with a common startup issue; when is the right time to launch? Launch too soon and you might not be ready, launch too late and you risk running out of money, falling behind your competition or simply never launching. Ultimately, Joel’s launch did not go to plan but it was also when the rela learning process began. Listening to Joel is also a powerful reminder of the importance of understanding your customers. And this is not a theoretical or a strategic exercise; speaking with your actual customers is critical for early stage businesses. But for me the biggest takeaway from this episode is the importance of understanding the metrics that really matter in your business. Nutrifix is focused on what Joel calls “hard activation” - the “ahha moment” when the user first engages with, understands and loves the app. What Joel is effectively describing is Nutrifix’s “north star metric” - which is a single metric that best captures the core value that his product delivers. This metric has the ability to unify the entire company around a single outcome - and every startup, entrepreneur and side hustler would gain a lot from finding out what their north star metric is.