Meeting with Alan. It's been a while since we have met. We started out doing a little bit of catch-up. We were talking about direction and goals. It feels like we are sort of scattered and don't have a focus. Alan and I are planning to meet to start working on small goals and projects at least once a week. I was mostly talking and drawing (on the screen) and Alan was chiming in and giving feedback. Here are a few things that I remember - I should have written other topics down as we talked about them.

- What are our main goals? Lots of time spent here hashing over things and lightly stating some of our goals.

- How big do we want to get? How big are we? Are we the right size or do we need to grow or shrink?

- Efficiency - pros and cons to that. Not everything is done purely on efficiency and that's ok, if there is a reason for that. We would love to be more efficient but that is not the total main goal. It will be a mix.

- We need a plan!

- Sometimes we bite off more than we can chew or take on too much. We need to break things into smaller pieces. Basically, get some things across the finish line, even if they are small. That's better than trying to take on a huge monster/elephant and not getting any of it across the finish line.

- We have 10 or so projects that are half baked (or some percentage done but not fully completed). Maybe Alan and I can circle back around and work on some of those projects together as a small team. Just an idea. Maybe plan a day or a time and then chip away at those things. Currently, we are all working on our own or individual projects.

- Talks about teams and sprints, vs individuals and solo projects.

- Cycles and phases - We tend to build up, then have to trim down when things are tight due to a money crunch or money crunches (plural). We recover for a bit and then tend to build up again. We then repeat the cycle. It seems to be a reoccurring theme.

- We are a general business tool. That's who we are. We then try to get too specific and that kills us. We spent time and resources trying to tweak things out for a single client. We have spent tons here, virtually chasing little rabbits. Just being silly, but an old proverb says... A fox who chases two rabbits catches neither. What about a fox who chases 10 rabbits? Just being silly!

- Looking into our goals and direction - where do we see ourselves in 5 years, 10 years, 2 years, 1 year? Really taking stock of what we are doing and where we are heading.

Great little meeting. We are going to meet next week and push on setting some goals and defining our direction. Then chip away at that. I'm excited to see where things go.

Our original plan was to work more on the SWOT analysis today. It ended up being a sounding board session. I was talking and telling Shannon what was going on and she was recording notes. See attached. Lots of fun ideas and concepts. It does repeat itself a lot but overall, great little brainstorming session. The cool thing is that we have some great take aways from our session. Here are just a couple. See the notes for deeper thoughts and ideas.

- AI (artificial intelligence) - Trends and observations

- Who? - Lots of talk about who will oversee and manage what

- Plans

- Marketing - Ideas including being able to cover over 85% of any business. Also some great ideas on marketing adilas' AI (artificial intelligence) aspects

- Company Structure - We really want to nail this down

- Value Add-On Core Model - Industry specific skins and quick aggregates (counts, sums, totals, etc.)

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New note - added on 1/19/24 - see attached for a new or updated version of our sounding board notes. Small edits and tweaks made by Brandon, after the fact. See attached.

Emails and recording notes for the day (1/16/24). Lots of good break throughs for me today. See notes for date listed.