Leverage Map Worksheet - Q2 Status, Q3 Planning
In our course Building a Mountain of Levers, we use this “Leverage Map” as one of the key frameworks. It shows our current Leverage, our weaknesses and opportunities, and helps plan for the future.
Now, I create a Leverage Map at the beginning of each Quarter. It doesn’t take long, and it is a very helpful way to see progress and re-orient. At the end of the Quarter, I look at progress relative to my expectations and create a new map and new goals for the next quarter.
Below is an example: leverage map from the beginning of Q3 2021, and the review at the end of the quarter.
Learn more about how to use this Map to build your own Mountain of Levers in the leverage course.
Ideas for Building Leverage in Q3
Action: Start a podcast (with support from ModernStoa)
Expectations: Have fun conversations with people I’m interested in, share what my friends know with thousands of people around the world. Deepen relationships with readers. Add depth, nuance, and examples to the idea of Leverage through Interviews. A vehicle to learn much more about web3, and explore new projects. Bring attention to people, products, and platforms I love and support. Answer questions for others I was lucky to have answered for me.
With help from Sky and ModernStoa, time commitment would be <10 hours a week (research, convo, recording) and I wouldn’t have to struggle through learning the new tools and techniques. Would hope it could grow and attract sponsors so we at least breakeven within 6 months. (If not, an expensive but probably worthwhile experiment.) Medium case: breakeven high-bandwidth communication channel. Best-case: Profitable product that I can re-invest in to totally change the business podcast game.
Action: Hire an Assistant
Expectation: I need consistent help with critical details, done right every time to deliver consistent quality. I could hire help to manage these processes for writing, the course, and the podcast. It will be difficult to scale all of these with quality and keep up with my other responsibilities. Plus, there is a backlog of similar work to transition old blog posts, improve SEO, update course materials, and more. Life will only get more complicated, and hiring an EA now will increase the ability to scale and improve all of life going forward.
Action: Transition to Convertkit
Expectation: Squarespace email tools are limiting, and Convertkit will let me professionalize and scale. Making that transitionn will be expensive, and a pain in the ass. I hope an EA could help with that, and if so I should hire them first.
Q3 Retrospective (Written in September)
EA: Hired Ivan through AthenaGo. Initiated July 16th, began working with Ivan beginning of August. Huge, huge help on many more things than I ever expected. Sparks Joy. Love you Ivan!
Convertkit: Ivan helped massively as we switched to Convertkit, transitioned Mid-August. Still some work to to do complete this transition fully. Tools are excellent and much improved, so feels like better rails to scale.
Start a podcast: Sky and team have made publishing my podcast (Jorgenson’s Soundbox) smooth. First episode published August 3rd, and we’ve kept up a weekly cadence since then. Anecdotal feedback is excellent so far, which is great, since there isn’t much of a tangible feedback loop. Sky and team are SO helpful in showing #s from episodes, and planning for growth. Still a lift to schedule and research every interview, but I’m on top of things now, which feels good. Podcast has grown to 30,000 downloads per month in the second month.
To follow the thread, next check out the leverage map I made after doing the retrospective: The Q3 Status, Q4 Planning Leverage Map Post