"You have the live inside the mind of your customer."

I was on a killer webinar last week when I heard that message from Marissa Sheehan. 

Beyond being a Thrive member, she’s an absolute amazing seller. 

This session that she led on how to be great at sales was one of the most eye opening ones I’ve been to in a long time. 

Ironically, because it made me think more about our product than the way I sell it. 

“You have the live inside the mind of your customer.” 

That quote is currently living rent free in my head. 

Is started forcing me to reflect on a lot. I spent the last day thinking about these three questions. 

“Do I know what it feels like to build a company solo?” 

“Do I know the challenges of being an early stage entrepreneur?”

“What’s the hardest part about being a bootstrapper?”

After thinking for a while, I realized that I did have answers to all three of those questions. 

I bootstrapped a company in isolation five years ago. I’m bootstrapping now (a bit less solo thankfully). 

But it’s just that—my own experience. 

And everyone’s experience is different. 

It turns out, I don’t put myself in the mind of my customer often enough to deliver an experience that is custom-built for them. 

And that cannot continue to happen.

That’s why I’m hiring a full time, head of member experience for Thrive. 

Someone who knows what it’s like to be bootstrapped, is obsessed with getting it right for our members, and will build the experience that they so strongly desire. 

I can’t split my time selling memberships and delivering value to members—it will always result in a member journey that’s not as good as it could be. 

Our members deserve to have someone solely focused on delivering for them every day. 

And they deserve for that person to be someone with a different perspective than just mine. 

I’m glad we did these listening sessions with tons of our members the last couple of weeks—and I’m glad I wasn’t in the room for them. 

Being too close to your business can make you blind to the challenges that are right in front of you. 

And I’ve been blind to some of our challenges for several months.

Every piece of feedback that came out of those sessions we’re taking very seriously. 

Because this is the members’ community—not mine.

I would have given anything to find this community when I was building my my first business five years ago. 

That’s how strongly I feel about it. 

But we have an obligation to ensure everyone feels that way when they’re in Thrive, too. 

We’ve got some huge goals in 2025—and that’s both scary and exciting. 

But no goal is more important to me than building an experience that every member is proud to evangelize. 

I’ll let you know who’s going to help us get there this Friday. 

Let’s Thrive. 

— Eric 👋