My mind worked in numbers before it worked in letters. To this day, it still works that way.
Sometimes you’ll see me pause in the middle of a sentence or speak so slowly that you’re not sure if I’ve ended a sentence. A few years ago, I would have been embarrassed to write that.
On the surface, you may see Nebullam as a company building indoor farms. You wouldn’t be wrong.
Afterall, our 1 liner is “direct-to-consumer indoor farms.”
But below the surface, I believe it’s positioned better than every other indoor farming company on the planet.
Why?
Many reasons. 1 of them is because I like numbers and sample sizes that prove reality.
When I first started playing online poker, I wanted to play in any tournaments that were happening.
I had a basic strategy of playing only the top 10% of hands. I would play 2-3 tables at once with no bankroll management. I kept with that strategy and over the next 1,500 games, I managed to lose a little bit of money.
I then looked at the games I felt were a better fit for me and discovered Sit-and-GOs (SNGs). I started to exclusively play SNGs. The next 1,500 games, I managed to win a little bit of money.
I then started reviewing my hand histories and sought out advice from friends who were better poker players. They pointed out my flaws. I listened somewhat. I improved somewhat. I went to play my next set of 1,500 games. I started off with win after win via good variance (luck), which drove my ego to move up in stakes. I moved up and had bigger swings of winning and losing. I managed to win a little bit more money.
A short time later, I dropped out of college to play full-time. At the height of my poker career, I was playing 7 days per week, up to 40 tables at once. It looked something like this.
I kept grinding. I’d move up in stakes and down in stakes. I’d have good bankroll management and bad bankroll management. I finally realized I liked consistency and the actual grind. I focused on improving my ROI, secured investment, and moved up in stakes. While there were many downs, I’m proud to have learned what I know, over playing thousands of games and millions of hands.
That’s a proper sample size that proves reality.
From poker to startups, there’s more overlap from my mind than you’d think. For Nebullam and the pivot to direct-to-consumer, we had to start the grind with our first set of subscribers, whom we knew little about.
With our early adopters, we asked why they signed up, and what they liked and didn’t like about our product and our service. We then built our models and improved our assumptions.
We continued to grind and treat each Nebullam subscriber as royalty, to the best of our ability. We then rebuilt our models and improved our assumptions.
Something started to click. We were iterating based on what the subscriber’s opinion was. There were more people out there who cared for healthy food, grown nearby, year-round! We considered this a proper sample size to double down on what we knew, but to keep open-minded to what new subscribers would tell us about their experience and what they wanted from us.
I OBSESSED over these charts (and still do, every single day). To understand that with 132 subscribers, that meant there were HUNDREDS of data points. Every time we completed a delivery, it was a data point and opportunity to improve. Every time one of our 132 subscribers would reach out, it was a data point and opportunity to improve. Improve, improve, improve.
Sprint after sprint. Larger and larger numbers meant a better and better sample size. Week-to-week snapshots added to month-over-month snapshots added to quarter-over-quarter snapshots.
When they say it’s up and to the right for a graph, you must have a proper sample size, and to zoom out to prove reality. We pieced together the past year and a half of determination and putting subscribers first. And now we have a sample size to raise more investment, move up in stakes (scaling to other markets), and to give ourselves a real chance at Nebullam being big.
We were built to grind up and to the right. And it’s still day 1.