Rocketship Scholars: My first lightbulb moment!
Rocketship Scholars Series: Post written by Kay Pengelly
I can’t say that I’m much of a blogger, but I certainly do love to pause and reflect - and this course is all about challenging myself! Let’s put on my reflecting hat and my writing (typing) gloves.
The Unlocking Growth SaaS Trial Rocketship course, in a span of two short weeks has buoyed me with a burst of energy and inspiration - and that enthusiasm only continues to grow (much like the plant I received as a welcome)!
The exciting thing about the Rocketship course and my cohort is simply how much people want it - every member has proactively put themselves forward and was accepted into the course simply because of how much they wanted to grow. That’s clear from the sheer calibre of my new classmates. A younger me would have been intimidated by being surrounded by a group of such high achievers, but I’m choosing to see this as the opportunity that it is - it’s certainly inspiring to accept that you’re often not the smartest person in the room, but you can see and appreciate the opportunity for growth that it presents to you.
That spark that everyone in the Rocketship Scholars had was perhaps the clearest in our first in-person catchup of the year. Within minutes, sparks of energy were firing in all directions (though I think the prosecco might have helped!), and we were all enthusiastically thinking of big-picture ideas for growth. What has most stuck out to me is the fact that this spark didn’t die down at the close of the night - I’ve been able to maintain some of this energy and convey some of my ideas to my team. After only a quick chat, the spark had been transferred - “oh my god, you’re right. We DO need to add that into our roadmap, and soon.”
…and while I could write paragraphs about how great it is to enjoy a wine or two with like-minded people, the part that deserves the most amount of affection is the actual content of the course itself. We are in Week 2, and we are starting off at a fine pace. What I appreciate about this course is how quickly we dive into the deep end. While I didn’t expect to be deep in Segment from Week 2 (and firing off events - my engineering team would be so proud of me!), I’m very glad that I am - I feel like I’m learning and building a strategy from the ground up. Also, a way to generate events for your team so you can test it beforehand! I love Unlocking Simulation!
I had my first “oh, of course. OF COURSE.” moment of clarity when it was explained to me the importance of having all of your data flowing through the same CDP. In such a simple video lesson, so many of my business frustrations had been answered - and all of them came from not knowing what to track, or how to track it. It was a lightbulb moment for me, and I was almost embarrassed at how obvious the solution seemed when it was spelled out for me so clearly. I’m not alone in this - I’ve noticed that many businesses wave away problems when they don’t know how to solve them - especially when there are thousands of other things to do. This last module lesson in particular helped me realise my own error in thinking. It’s not that I had unsolvable problems, it’s that I hadn’t thought about making the most out of the tools that I already had access to.
So, what’s next for me? Well on top of staying on top of my course work, I’m making sure that I’m taking these learnings and applying it to my business to develop some real, tangible improvements to our app. I certainly wasn’t alone in the “oh, of course!” realisation when I pitched it to my team. While I can’t exactly say what those action items are, it’s invigorating to see the benefit of streamlining data through one source - and how we can eventually be a product that integrates seamlessly with others.
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