This week in the Life Of Dana!

What I’ve been learning…

…At work:

The biggest learning curve this week has definitely been beginning to truly understand the process behind the business development service that we offer. 

I came into this role with no official experience in a business development position, so even learning the vocabulary has been a process. Learning what “cleaning a list” of prospects actually means and what it looks like in real life, learning what the functional difference between a prospect and a lead, learning how to use various tools (and functions within Google Sheets!) to make our lives easier and less manual-labor-intensive—it seems like a lot of basic stuff but it all really compounds into a much larger picture.

I’ve also been learning more about accelerators, how they work, what their purpose is in the lifespan of a startup, and what comes after you go through one. 

Various members of the Hapday team are very involved with a fee-free accelerator for baby, baby startups called Startup Boost (“very involved” is an understatement—my boss is literally the co-director of the New York chapter). Because of this, this week I had the opportunity to speak with a couple of founders from the last group that went through the program. 

It’s been incredible getting to meet so many different people, learn about their businesses, and hear about why they’re doing what they’re doing. I love learning about people and their why, so this has really been the icing on the cake for me in terms of learning this week.

…in New York:

I learned that dollar pizza is a real thing, and it’s great for people who are on a budget but don’t yet own their own Tupperware to bring lunches to work. 

I’m slowly but surely getting the hang of the subway system! I moved to a new Airbnb, so I now take a different train to work every day. So even though I confidently boarded the wrong train and confidently rode in the wrong direction for three stops, I’m now confidently headed the correct direction (literally and figuratively speaking). 

I learned that there’s more than one church in New York City. (Who knew?)

…in life in general:

I started practicing Russian again, and I just hit my first seven-day streak on Duolingo! After practicing every day for more than a month earlier this summer, it’s a little sad to have to start all the way back at Day One, but I’m excited to get the streak back up.

What I’ve been creating..

…at work:

My big project from this week was creating that Business Development Process document. Before this, there about five different “official processes” that were all in various stages of development, along with an excessive amount of handbooks for various stages of the process. This will, hopefully, simplify and consolidate that information.

The idea with this is to create one comprehensive document that walks you from the very beginning of the client relationship to the very last step. The goal is to make is so clear that any person off the street can come in, sit down, and get the job done with zero contextual knowledge. 

This was tasked to me. Dana. Who had zero contextual knowledge. 

What better way to learn than to teach someone else how to do it, right?

So that will need to be boiled down, condensed, stretched, and honed just a little bit until it’s really as clear and comprehensive as it needs to be, but the first attempt is officially complete. 

…in regular life:

I’ve been intentional about curating lists on Google Maps of places that 1) I want to go to, 2) people have recommended to me, and 3) I’ve actually gone to. 

The goal is to have a very robust selection of restaurants, shops, venues, and whatever else New York has to offer so at some point I can create some Dana’s Handy-Dandy Guides To New York When You’re Brand New And Don’t Know Anyone And Also Don’t Have Any Money To Spend (or something along those lines). 

Praxis Weekly Workshop—

Building a career roadmap with Chad Troutman

I already wrote a little bit about this Praxis group session, which you can read about here.

However, since then I’ve had another takeaway really sit with me (and even come into play at work already). 

This is the idea that in business, our goal is to solve our customers’ pain points. We need to identify who is feeling the pain the worst, and create our content to speak directly to them. Your product is not going to appeal or apply to everyone, and that’s okay. Not everyone experiences the same pain or problems. 

The goal, however, is to identify those people who are feeling the pain and offer them the most value possible in terms of solving that pain. 

This was helpful in drafting up ideas for a content strategy for Hapday (which was my other main project for the week). Being able to focus on the pain that our services are helping to alleviate, and the kinds of people who would be experiencing that pain, was instrumental in focusing which direction to take the topic (and content) at hand.