The Week I Flew To Budapest, Hungary

This Week:

How long it took me to pack my van and bags, and why.
Flying to Budapest, Hungary! My first impressions.
The delicious food from Budapest so far.

November 2024

Su	M	T	W	Th	F	S
27	28	29	30	31	11/1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30

Where In The World Was I?

🇺🇸 Denver, Colorado, U.S.
✈️ Denver to Istanbul to Budapest
🇭🇺 Budapest, Hungary

Metrics From The Week

It’s actually kind of weird, when I’m in Europe and Asia, my HRV immediately jumps up (good), RHR drops (good), and respiratory rate drops (good) 🤔 Could it be the elevation drop? Who knows, but I’ll take it.

If you’ve been following along with my YouTube videos, I described in I don’t want to feel stagnant anymore. Getting back to intentionality. that I wanted to get more intentional about my time here. That was Thursday, speaking about my first day here, Wednesday. I’d say it’s going well so far.

Business Progress Update

Last week I had finished (minus fixing bugs) the scaling and optimization chapter of my software and started shifting back to lead generation and getting users.

I’ve been back to interacting inside the Skool communities I’m in and started reaching back out to some new users and some old first-time users.

This week I onboarded 2 users, 1 new, 1 from my first round of feedback, added 1 user to my waitlist, and spoke with 1 other that was interested but hasn’t start posting videos yet.

The new user I talked to had mentioned “I know a ton of guys that would be interested,” which is a good lead, but as they say, I’ll believe it when I see it. That said, I’ve been getting good results from Skool communities so far in reach outs and it seems like finding these types of people (who are community owners with lots of connections) is the absolute best bang for my buck right now.

I just need to make sure my product is good enough that they want to refer others. That will come as I start to get more feedback this round.

The GAME PLAN

Which, speaking of this round, I roughly came up with a strategy going forward.

My main goal is to get enough validation through recurring users. This requires two main things: enough inflow of users and a product good enough that they stay.

The last 6 weeks or so has been focused on the latter. I think it’s there, but I need validation from people that are… NOT me.

So, the focus now is get people in the door and using it, then see what the feedback says. The hope is that I’m either there or close enough that I can make some quick tweaks to get people sticking.

From there, I’ll get testimonials and improve the social proof of my landing page, then start charging as new people come in.

That seems to be my best course of action here. Let’s see how it goes.

Aside from that, I’ve done a lot of bug and error fixing as things have come up.

Running The Checklists

The time has finally come!

I packed my bags, cleaned up and prepped my van to sit while I flew abroad.

Since this is now my 3rd time doing this, and because I’m… me, I have a checklist for this process. If you’re curious what it looks like, this is the TL;DR:

Final days:
- Oil change, car wash, laundry, fill tires, discharge/charge batteries to long term storage percentage, empty/fill propane to storage percentage
Final day:
- Empty food from cabinets, empty and thaw fridge, secure remaining stuff, wipe down kitchen, oven, fridge, cabinets, toilet, dust and mop floors
- Clean and empty trash
- Empty water tank, drain water from pipes, undo water pipe connections
- Dump trash, recycling, greywater, composting toilet
- Fill gas and add fuel stabilizer
Final Pass:
- Hook door chains, close and cover roof vent, leave the bed flattened
- Turn off all electronics
- Trip all switches
- Switch off all propane levers and turn off vapor valve
- Put up window covers and steering wheel lock
Say goodbye!

I also have a checklist for how to pack my backpacks. It’s less interesting, just an itemized list of every single item to pack and where it goes.

But the MASSIVE upside of doing this is that I don’t have to rely on my brain or memory in a higher pressure situation (like catching a flight). There’s no “ahh shoot I forgot my laptop charger!” because well, it’s on the checklist, and I went through my checklist.

It took me exactly 90 minutes from start to finish to pack everything in my bags. The whole van prep took me ~3 hrs? (not including lunch, breaks, and driving around; ~11am-4pm)

The downside is that you’re only as good as your checklist, so your checklist needs to have everything. But, with each trip and each iteration, you get the opportunity to improve the checklist.

As an example, when I returned from my 9mo trip abroad last year, I took a couple minutes to write down what I might change/keep. One of those things was taking 2 pairs of synthetic (workout) briefs instead of 1. And I removed my travel router and ethernet cables because I never used them.

The other thing is that I’ve created a “wardrobe” that works in every climate, every situation. So, there’s no question of “hmm should I bring 1 pair of pants or 2?” I just bring what’s on the list and that list is the same whether I’m drinking margaritas on the beach in Bali (Fact Check™️: I’ve never done this 😂) or it’s winter in Budapest, Hungary.

I can see why someone might think this is a lot of work to maintain, but man for me, it’s been a lifesaver. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

It’s just a classic local cost vs. global benefit situation. Put in the work upfront, reap the rewards in the future.

✈️ Off To Budapest

I’ve now been to 2 Capital One lounges and they’ve both been i n c r e d i b l e. Highly recommend.

I flew from Denver to Istanbul, Turkey first (direct!) on what I think was an Airbus A350-900 and it had a livestreamed view OF YOUR OWN PLANE. I think this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

The Flat Earthers will say the camera is curved 😂

Bit of a hard landing 😅 and the stream is delayed a couple seconds but still insanely cool.

Welcome To Budapest, Hungary

Back to those morning coffee shops (except a lot of places don’t open until 8am! Whaaaaattttt!?)

My first impressions:

The buildings and architecture kind of feels like a mixture between Berlin (some of those boxy and simple buildings) with a more popular/upscale European city like Paris or Barcelona (beautiful architecture, churches, domes).
The streets, the walkways, the cafes and restaurants are just so… Europe (the U.S. is so different)
They use the Hungarian Forint here, not the euro. 1,000 Ft is about $2.50.
It’s much cheaper, though it depends on where you go. (food pics at the bottom of the post)
- Double espresso ~$2.75
- Big croissant ~$2.90
- Large burrito $9.50
- Vegan paprikash $10.50
- Focaccia sandwich $11.00
- Fresh homemade pasta dish $14.50
All the food I’ve had so far has been VERY good. I’m surprised how modern and quality the restaurants are here.
To a naive outsider, I thought Hungarian kind of sounds like it’s got some connection with Russian/Ukrainian, but apparently there’s literally no connection there at all 😂
People dress well, though that might just be a European thing.
The weather is honestly the same as in Denver right now. Highs of 46-50ºF, lows of 28-32ºF.

The Mindset Shift

If you read last week’s post, I’m using this trip as a closing of one chapter, opening of the next.

I knew I wanted to take advantage of my time here and not spend it the same as a “camped in the mountains grinding all day” kind of day, but it took me some friction to switch my mindset.

As a result of some jetlag and the U.S. election results, I spent longer than I wanted on Wednesday chilling in the hostel on my phone. But, I wanted to get back to intentionality. I chatted about this in I don’t want to feel stagnant anymore. Getting back to intentionality.

And I feel like I’m back.

I’ve still been getting work done, but I’ve been spending some time journaling and reading in a coffee shop in the morning, documenting more thoughts and ideas, doing a lot more walking, exploring new areas and restaurants, and going on a run/workout in the evening.

I wanted to pull back from the full-focus mindset, but also not fall into the too tired to do anything mindset. Being back in this routine has made me miss the routine I had abroad last year/earlier this year. It just feels so much more sustainable long-term.

Thoughts From The Week

Remember to take a look around

202411092200 Remember to take a look around and breathe

#journal 

I'm doing my nightly journal, writing about how I'm still in the crazy early stages of my software, fighting fires, feeling the stress and pressure.

I wrote that and then had this connection back to how I liked the crazy hectic time at my job.

It made me think, there may never be a time this crazy and unknown as right now, building my first SaaS business. I may very well look back on this exact moment and think fondly about it in retrospect as such a gripping time of my life.

And that zoomed me out for a moment.


Remember to take a look around every once in a while. It may never be this crazy again. And that's special.

Recognizing my fears

202411090844 Recognizing my fear of rejection

#journal #fear #rejection 

From Nov 9th, 2024 in 9BAR in Budapest.

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November 9th, 2024 | Budapest

Morning. Quick thought — the worst part of Budapest so far? The coffee shops open late. 8am, 8:30am, 9am, like what do you people do? To be fair, there are some open at 7am-7:30am, but I’ve already been to all of them LOL.

Discomfort - I was thinking last night, my next goal is 20-50 users, which means I need to reach out to maybe 100-500 people. The problem? I’m not going to get any users without actually putting in the time messaging people, and I don’t seem to actually be drawn/inclined towards doing this so far. So the question is, what’s going to motivate me to do this? And what’s stopping me right now?

I’ve got a working product, I’m offering it for free. I’ve got validation for this before... It's a strong offer. Is it fear? Fear of disapproval? Bad feedback? Is it perfectionism? Wouldn’t you rather hear bad feedback so you can improve it to hear actual positive feedback instead of this weird anxious, uncertain mindset?

Maybe it’s just hard? Or that I don't know what to say?

Yet, I’ve already had a dozen conversations and documented them all. The scripts are there.

I think I'm fearing the rejection, the "eh I'm not interested" or the "eh this isn't that useful for me." And the reason I don't want to reach out is because there’s the unknown there, the chance of rejection in reaching out to someone new.

And the kicker is, if I don’t reach out, then there’s no way to get negative feedback.


You know I’m sitting here in 9BAR and realizing that this is the same underlying feeling that I initially hesitate to say words in other languages that I'm not 100% confident about.

I would rather not try. I would rather just not say anything, than try and fail, or try and have it not be pronounced correctly. I'm getting better at this, at least by now I've heard how hi, bye, and thank you are used and pronounced, but I still feel the awkwardness saying them, because I don't know 100% that I'm doing it right.

So I think this is not a [software] problem, this is a Peter problem. The same rejection fear came up in [previous project].

So the question becomes, how do I get over this? How do I fix it? How do I not have this fear?

I spoke about this and gave more thoughts in the video being posted noon eastern time Sunday Nov 10th, 2024, but I’ll share one main thing here.

One of my theories is that this is partially just atrophy. I’ve done this before and so I think I just need to get over this initial hump, the initial barrier. Once I get the first handful of reach outs and conversations started, then the ball will start to roll.

What I like about this is that it shifts the focus from how do I tackle this mountainous task, to I just need to push through some initial discomfort, then it’ll get easier (for now).

I remember back in high school and college when I swam competitively, getting in the pool on those Saturday mornings when it’s snowy and freezing cold outside and the water is cold was TOUGH. But I figured out that it’s really only about 10 seconds of discomfort/pain. It’s just the initial shock that you have to survive, then you just forget about it.