Welcome to our very first monthly update from the exhilarating world of being a tech founder! November has been a whirlwind of progress, fun problem-solving and milestones. I know so many of you are here following on from my journey building Love To Launch over the last 7 years, so I thought it might be valuable to share what’s happening as we build ProperPlan

The month landed me with a personal health challenge – battling the dread ‘rona virus! Having dodged it for three years, it finally caught me, but thankfully, it came at a time when our schedule was less hectic on a content or calls level. This unexpected pause actually provided me with a golden opportunity for reflection and strategising, especially as I shift my focus as CEO from mainly being a personal brand to a product-oriented approach. I think ultimately even when you’re a product company, there’s a sense of it feeling personal, but there’s also a need for your product to have a personality and to articulate that through your brand strategy.

All the admin…

This month was filled with the nuts and bolts of business operations. We’ve been busy with essential tasks like closing our investment round with our fundraise team Obu Invest, handling all the legals and contractual matters, setting up accounting systems, and more (much more) so we’re building on strong foundations as we scale.

Cost-saving strategies…

We’ve landed some fantastic startup offers for business software and tools. These have led to significant cost savings which I had no idea would even be an option for us, but I’d say 7/10 of the companies we’re partnering with for our own operational and tech needs have offered us free or massively discounted year 1 subscriptions. Seed Legals (who we worked with for the legal side of our startup) literally gave us a list of offers we could get!

Branding Evolution

We’ve been leveling up our brand, visuals, website and logo. This logo was chosen by our community through a vote on our new Instagram account.

We collaboratively fine-tuned the UI/UX of our app, and the subsequent prototypes received fantastic feedback from our beta users. Designing these mockups is where I find my greatest joy!

Looking ahead as a team, we’re focusing on multiple fronts: launch strategies, SEO, content creation, partner programs, and refining our website and marketing materials and working really closely with those who have signed up for our beta program 

I’m incredibly excited for December and the continued development of our app. Stay tuned for more updates, and thank you for being a part of this journey!