Reflections on 2017 and my goals for the new year

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By the end of the year, I love to reflect on how I did on the goals I had defined for myself 12 months ago. I trust it is a good exercise to look at my own reality from some distance and see how much the feared time-drains and daily routines pushed to take over my initially stated objectives.

Last year is bluntly stated:

For 2017,  I have only one goal: Do less but better. I like the idea from the Essentialism book, that priorities should be a singular word, we should have one single priority!.

And the most important thing for me is to enjoy the journey with the right balance between Family – CARTO – Extended Family/Friends – Ecosystem

Success for me will be measured by how my family enjoys 2017, not just copes with it.How we all have the time, the energy and the health to face the challenges with optimism and clear minds.

Seemed easy, right?, not too many goals and more importantly, expectations which appeared to be under in my sole command.

I ended my wishful post in December 2016, with this awesome mantra:

Set my priority right, postponing what is secondary and with FOCUS.
Thinking before speaking
Smile against adversities, smile more, and more.
Be thankful, a lot, for my privileges and the opportunity to be here, present now, to enjoy life to the fullest.

How did I do?

Well, all in all, 2017 has been a tough year, a rollercoaster full of steep ups and downs, but overall my feeling is quite positive. It has been, somehow, a year of completion, a change of a cycle after four years of full immersion into a never ending challenge.

I have, indeed, tried to do less things, as promised. I traveled less, for instance, and I almost achieved my goal of spending no single weekend out of home during the whole year. I have delegated so much more in CARTO that I ultimately realized that I was ready to move on into something different, with the proud feeling that my team is more than ready and capable to take over.

I went to less irrelevant ego-driven ecosystem events, which actually didn´t missed for a beat the fact that I did not attended, which is always a good sign to determine if you should go or not to an event.

I tried hard to think before speaking and while I didn’t manage to smile as much as I expected to, I have been immensely thankful for every moment of joy, creation, love, laughs with friends and time spent with my family, which this year has delivered to me.

After I told the team a few weeks ago that I was leaving CARTO, I got a lot of heavy hearted responses from my fellow colleagues, my dear friends. But there is something that struck me a lot and which I am very grateful for.

A leitmotif in many of the letters was, that I have had a lasting impact in them, not by being a hard-working maniac, or a controlling freak who knows about SaaS or Finance, or about relentless hustling and demand generation. BUT, because I have taught them to care deeply about others, to be open and humble, and always have a minute to help or focus in the challenges others are facing as if they were your own.

Those were not intended teachings, but it is what matters the most. Always.

In 2018, there are many changes approaching my horizon. I will get to meet new colleagues, join a very different organisation, travel to very different places I have never been to and try to have impact to make the lives of entrepreneurs easier all around the world. Again, what a privilege!.

With so much going on, I want to keep my 2018 goals short.

  1. Let go of the past and embrace the imperatives of the new situations, to prepare myself for a running start.
  2. Meet the expectations of my new stakeholders: my new boss/es, new colleagues, the ecosystem, but without missing the expectations and promises to my loved ones.
  3. Spend more time with friends and family – My marriage points account shall not be compromised in 2018, after all the strain I put into it over the last years. It is so important to nurture those who care deeply about yourself, your tribe, which would hold you if you fall, and not just follow you if you rise. They are just a handful of individuals, but they can surely change my world.
  4. Be humble, be realistic and remain a possibilist. Aim for the things that can be done considering the circumstances, my own skills and the balance between my needs, the needs of the ones I love and the never ending flow of external requests.
  5. And never forget the privilege I have to be here and now, present and ready to enjoy the challenges of the future.

Do less but better

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Two titans of the national entrepreneurial ecosystem and true ninjas of work-life balance like Carina Szpilka and Arrola, sent me a book which is a MUST read: “Essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of Less”.

First impression that struck me is that they must have seen in myself, a poor, desperate soul in need, when they had to run to deliver me the book before the Christmas break. And they are right. ;).

Second thought is that this ties nicely with my yearly post about my review of the last 12 months and the goals for the time to come. As I did last year here.

Let me pick back the goals I wrote for 2016 in my post:

Smile more, forgive more, judge less.
Take care of my team and delegate much, much more.
Spend much more time with my Mom and Dad.
Enjoy deeply the development of my family, caring more about Elena and the girls.
Go back into practicing sport regularly, at least 1-2 times per week.
Worry less and have much more fun, looking into the future with optimism.

And let´s evaluate how I did.

Smile more, forgive more, judge less.

I had less reasons to smile in 2016, but I tried my best, and I certainly judged less. But I still feel that I have lots to improve in this aspect. I give myself a 6.

Take care of my team and delegate much, much more.

I was able to delegate much more in some functions: Operations, Finance, Solutions, thanks to our talented managers, but was not so successful in Sales, where we hired the right talent only on the second half of the year. But I do feel I am clearly on the path to full delegation there for 2017. So let´s call it a 7.

Spend much more time with my Mom and Dad.

I blocked a weekly lunch with my folks every Friday in my calendar this year, and only managed to succeed 30% of those (with all the travels and last minute meetings). I think the effort was in the right direction, but this only deserves a 4.

Enjoy deeply the development of my family, caring more about Elena and the girls.

I did enjoy the beautiful two little persons that my daughters are becoming immensely. While all the traveling and stress had an adverse impact in our family’s well being.  A 6.

Go back into practicing sport regularly, at least 1-2 times per week.

I started swimming!, twice a week. And while my bi-polar NYC-Madrid schedule didn´t allow me to be as consistent as I would like to, I think this was a massive improvement compared to 2015. Let´s indulge myself a 7.

Worry less and have much more fun, looking into the future with optimism.

Well, this year has been several orders of magnitude harder than 2015 both on a professional and personal level. I had more reasons to worry, both from a macro, micro and nano-perspectives and less triggers to have fun. But I still look into the future with lots of optimism. I like how Greg McKeown, states in his “Essentialism” book that the secret lies in having the “power of choice” and I chose to have much more fun next year.

Looking into CARTO in detail, we did far too many things as a company after the series B and the digestion of all these activities and projects has proven hard. Over the last 12 months we accomplished great milestones such as:

  • Repositioning of the company
  • Rebranding of the company, from CartoDB to CARTO
  • New product launch: CARTO Builder
  • Our first acquisition and integration, Nutiteq & launch of CARTO’s Mobile SDK
  • Hiring experienced and talented SVPs of sales, marketing & Engineering to join our exec
  • Pricing changes to simplify our offering and adapt it to the enterprise
  • Our first $1M deal
  • New Madrid, DC & London offices
  • Growing the team to approx 100 people

And, of course, we had some relevant misses.

Our Sales objectives were pretty optimistic back in January, considering our stage of development, and we had to revamp our sales team mid year through. While we were not successful in our 1st VP of sales hiring iteration. Jason Lemkin is ALWAYS right.

We had delays in product delivery and were a bit naïve about the added complexity of a new product launch with an installed based on 250K users and 1200 paying customers. And we experienced a decrease in efficiency across the organization due to hyper-growth and new hires in several locations without clearly defined roles.

For 2017,  I have only one goal: Do less but better. I like the idea from the Essentialism book, that priorities should be a singular word, we should have one single priority!.

And the most important thing for me is to enjoy the journey with the right balance between Family – CARTO – Extended Family/Friends – Ecosystem

Success for me will be measured by how my family enjoys 2017, not just copes with it. How we all have the time, the energy and the health to face the challenges with optimism and clear minds.

I am sure this will also help CARTO and my professional challenges. CARTO will grow to become an adult this year, leaving the uncertainties of teenage to become a global SaaS player with tremendous optionality in 2017. We will consolidate the efforts and initiatives of the last months, and follow the same principle I will apply to myself, focus on less things. Where organizational design will play a key role to shape the company we want to work in.

I would like these thoughts to be my mantra:

Set my priority right, postponing what is secondary and with FOCUS.
Thinking before speaking
Smile against adversities, smile more, and more.
Be thankful, a lot, for my privileges and the opportunity to be here, present now, to enjoy life to the fullest.