Have you ever felt like everything was going wrong you had no idea what to do? On this episode, we celebrate 3 million podcast downloads by opening up about the times when it looked like we weren't going to make it. We look back on our journey to accomplishing this podcast milestone, and talk about how we overcame 5 specific setbacks we’ve encountered as a company over the years. We highlight the lessons that we learned that allowed us to keep going even when it looked like there was no way forward. In this real and honest episode, we share the difficult times we've been though as the Asian Efficiency team, and we share what helped us bounce back so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes we did.

Cheat Sheet

Celebrating 3 million downloads! 2:11

The setbacks that the Asian Efficiency team has had along the way 5:45

The real reason we decided to launch the podcast in the first place 9:05

Why Thanh initially thought the podcast was a bad idea 10:24

Lessons we learned from launching the podcast without a clear vision or plan 17:23

Things to avoid if you're looking to start a blog or a podcast 20:56

The staff shake-ups that have changed the face of the podcast and company (and how we overcame them) 25:02

Brooks’s take on company changes from the perspective of a listener 31:17

What to do about the things in life that you can’t plan for 34:47

How to deal with personnel changes as a CEO or entrepreneur 37:36

How our team finally figured out how to make the podcast profitable 43:44

How we overcame early discouraging results with the podcast (and also with a few of our products) 51:53

The things we do to mitigate risk and setbacks before they happen 54:25

How to deal with a work emergency when one arises and use a post-mortem process to make things better in the future 59:55

Why it’s beneficial to iterate your products in public 1:04:04

How to use critical feedback to make your company even better 1:07:21

Links

OmniFocus Premium Posts

TPS7: Going Paperless w/ Brooks Duncan

Kaizen

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If you enjoyed this episode, follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts or your favorite podcast player. It’s easy, you’ll get new episodes automatically, and it also helps the show. You can also leave a review!