My Car Ride Epiphany

I recently had to face my biggest personal fear, driving longer than 4 hours. 

I’m currently homeless (not in the dramatic, “I’m a wandering soul” way, but more in the “I don’t want to sign a 12 month lease right now so let’s go travel” way)

This weekend, I’m meeting up with 9 of my best friends from college at a ranch near a small town in Texas called Boerne.

Since I didn’t book my flight in time, I had to make a choice: pay $800 for a roundtrip flight from Atlanta, Georgia or endure the self-imposed challenge of a long drive.

So, I decided to break up the 16 hour drive from Atlanta to Boerne by splitting it in half and stopping in Baton Rouge to visit my grandparents before heading to Boerne.

It was during this stretch to BR that I had a couple of significant epiphanies about Sam’s List. 

Eight hours of monotony initially seemed daunting, but it turned out to be the perfect backdrop for some deep introspection and way-too-loud music. ([For me, a bit of noise can actually help clear my mind and accelerate my thinking— I’m sure there’s a name for that…..haha)

It’s like being on a treadmill where your brain suddenly starts running at full speed. I found myself reflecting on Sam’s List, our current position, our goals, and the roadblocks we face.

Epiphany #1: My Communication with Sam and Joe Needs Improvement

Sam’s List was literally days from shutting down because of a communication error on my end. 

I’ll get to that point next, but if it wasn’t for this 8 hour car drive, I genuinely don’t know if Sam’s List would have existed next month! 

I realized that while we’ve proven there’s a need for Sam’s List, we haven’t yet achieved the scale we’re aiming for.

It’s like hosting an amazing party with only half the guests showing up.

We’ve got accountants extremely eager to join our platform, but our users (those looking for an accountant) aren’t as enthusiastic.

Sam, who is actually looking for a new accountant, recently tweeted about his frustration with how accountants seem less than thrilled with the platform. I get where he’s coming from—he was matched with an accountant through Sam’s List, reached out, and received no response. 

From my vantage point, as the person who interacts with both sides—users and accountants—it’s clear that the real bottleneck isn’t the accountants. It’s the users.  And Sam and Joe did not realize that. Because I never really said that explicitly. 

We’re dealing with an engagement issue on the user side, and that’s where our focus needs to be.

Our accountants are ready and eager, but if users aren’t engaging or are just browsing without intent, we’re not making the impact we should. 

That’s why improving my communication with Sam and Joe is crucial. Because for the past 6 months, they’ve been operating under the assumption that we have a bunch of unresponsive accountants, when in reality, we have a bunch of users (accountant seekers) that are unresponsive for whatever reason.

I’ve been hesitant to overshare with Sam and Joe because they run a much larger, more successful company, Hampton, and have other commitments with other ventures, and families to pay attention to!

So my thinking has always been, keep them in the loop with the high level stuff and don’t overwhelm them with the small stuff.  My lack of communication on this specific area nearly led to Sam’s List shutting down last week and I don't want that to happen again. I’m having way too much fun running the most boring company in the world. 

Epiphany #2: Voice-To-Text Magic

On a lighter note, I discovered the voice-to-text feature on the Google Docs iPhone app on this 8 hour drive. (spare me ok) I used it for the last hour and a half on my drive and it was a game-changer.

I could speak my thoughts into a document and organize them later. This has already saved me a ton of time, and I’ve used it almost every day now.  I’m even writing this blog after coming back from a 30-minute walk where I voice-to-texted 3 upcoming blog posts. 

Anyways, tell a friend to tell a friend that Sam’s List needs more lively users, so if they need a new business accountant, send them my email, I’ll hook them up!  See you later! - Kimi / kimi@samslist.com