The summer of 2009 was normal for Texas: punishingly hot and the perfect conditions to train for Football. The first day of 2-a-days always ended in 10 all out sprints, each 240 yards apiece. Back of endzone to back of endzone. Maybe easy if I didnt weigh 265 lbs and was in full gear.
10 sprints because in Texas High School Football a standard season is 10 games. The first sprint…Its a quick down and back. Second sprint is much the same, but its maybe at 98% the speed the first one was at. I start to really feel it on the third one. There is no energy left in your system. Its the end of practice, and the only thing between me and ice cold water is another 7 of these blasted 240s. By the fourth one I can’t catch my breath between sprints. By the fifth my calves are completely gassed and i’m starting to feel it in my quads. On the sixth one I start to mitigate energy spent on moving anything non essential. My neck starts to lol. On the 7th your fitness coach is telling you just how easy this was last week. On the eighth one coach is reminding us that faith in the now has no fear, and that if we ignore the pain this push will make us better. On the ninth one you can taste it, or maybe that was vomit. Regardless, your so locked in on completing this task that not even the stitches holding your abdomen to your legs cant get your attention. Your hands are above your head and eyes are on God asking for forgiveness and hope that the agony can finally end.
The whistle blows on the tenth sprint. With the last amount effort your muscular system converts glucose into ATP without the presence of oxygen–all oxygen is being sent to your brain to keep you alive. The last several yards are euphoria–the end is near and you didn’t let a single freshman (lineman) beat you, but you know the lactic acid buildup is going to keep you sore for days.
Startups remind me a lot of this conditioning: there is a general direction you need to go, there are very clear fail cases, and success comes down to endurance. Founders are doing it every day like its some kind of normal profession. Well, its my profession, and I failed very spectacularly. In early July 2024 we laid off nearly 40% of our staff. The sprinting we had done for the last four years to prepare TestFit for enterprise capability was achieved at the same moment the CRE world went from bull to bear.
The last 8 months have been the hardest in the history of our startup. Sales that were easy became hard. Markets that were easy to talk to went mute. Even more incredible software value is nothing compared interest rates.
My promise to our customers:
You will not see another founder push AEC harder than I will–especially as we build TestFit into its next form.
To the amazing professionals that were with us for too short of a time…Josh, John, Pete, Andreea, Cole, Kirk, Mark, Chris, Stan, Josh, Derien, Caroline, Miguel, Trent, and Earl…I wont easily forget this failure and am actively learning from it. I’m sorry about how this moment played out.