{"id":1016,"date":"2022-01-24T06:26:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T06:26:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericjbusch.com\/EJB_2022\/?p=1016"},"modified":"2022-01-24T06:37:07","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T06:37:07","slug":"starting-the-rigorous-pursuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericjbusch.com\/EJB_2022\/2022\/01\/24\/starting-the-rigorous-pursuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Starting the Rigorous Pursuit"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I have a plan for where this whole thing is going, but candidly it could come to a dead end. Regardless I am excited to get started.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Perhaps I should provide a little backstory to give better context.<\/span>
<\/p>\n

Way back in 2005 a recruiter at Grainger found an old resume of mine posted on Monster.com and gave me a call to see if I was interested in joining a newly formed consulting team focused on supply chain analysis for large customers. Less than a week later I accepted the position. Through my work I discovered a series of insights related to MRO (i.e., maintenance, repair and operations related) procurement and material movement, then devised strategic models for MRO continuous improvement and inventory management. I incorporated all of this into a couple of extensive research reports written in support of an executive customer council. <\/span>
<\/p>\n

That led to being tasked with rebranding Grainger\u2019s inventory management service. I devised a core value prop and then designed, built and deployed suite of applications for reporting, analytics and value demonstration. Eventually I got moved to a new team to work on go to market strategy full-time and then spent five years refining messaging, creating digital content and building infrastructure to enable data-based features and benefits. In 2017 I was assigned to co-lead the design, development and launch of a new service offer and that work necessitated a redesign of the service portfolio and new go to market messaging.<\/span>
<\/p>\n

During this 15-year period of MRO-focused work for Grainger, I found myself searching for the “right idea” to invest my entrepreneurial energy. Since I function like a walking think tank there was no shortage of concepts or notions, simply a lack of confidence in any of them. I spent considerable time researching and designing a podcast\/blog content based business, but never had enough conviction to put plans into action. I spent a couple of years rebuilding and reselling Apple MacBook Air laptops (an odyssey you can read about here) but that amounted to an hourly job with a revenue model that couldn\u2019t scale.<\/span>
<\/p>\n

Now admittedly, I have a long history of dreaming about many things and acting on few. It is not that my ideas are quixotic, I just struggle to convince myself of their long-term viability. It really comes down to limited resources\u2014namely time. Being a full-time employee, married with three kids who all play sports and homeowner with 2.5 acres to maintain leaves few extra hours to pursue something additional that has a 50\/50 chance of success.  So if someone isn\u2019t paying me to run a race\u2014regardless of outcome\u2014I\u2019m content to wait for a race I\u2019m confident I\u2019ll win. <\/span>
<\/p>\n

But that mindset changed in 2021 when executive level leadership change at Grainger<\/a> and subsequent reorganization of management eventually led to the elimination of my team. My years of service were recognized with a very generous severance package in exchange for a signed non-compete agreement and at the end of July I was a free agent looking for a new challenge. I pursued a few opportunities to stay with Grainger before coming to the realization I would need to move on to a new organization in a different industry. And that meant all of my unused MRO-related ideas, concepts, frameworks, models and analogies would never be put to use. That bothered me.<\/span>
<\/p>\n

It bothered me because I wasn\u2019t ready to delete the content. I believed there was a leaderless, unorganized and disconnected tribe of MRO professionals scattered across the country who wanted it but had no idea it existed. There are few\u2014if any\u2014independent, third-party experts for MRO topics and there is a dearth of credible advice and guidance IN ANY FORM: books, videos, podcasts, blogs, etc.<\/a> Plus the useful materials that are available are provided largely by distributors and suppliers\u2014like Grainger\u2014and thus often come in the form of sales collateral, white papers or byline articles with a very clear advocated solution. This leaves individuals tasked with improving MRO related procurement and inventory management with limited options in terms of education, learning and reference. In short, I contend there is an underserved market.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so over the next 60 days I did what I do best: I thought about it and designed a solution. I hashed it out in my head, poked holes in it, played devil’s advocate and attacked it from every possible angle in an effort to prove it could not work. Ultimately, I failed. And there I stood, in my basement office staring at my whiteboards and Post-it\u00ae Notes (Super Sticky, of course) with the framework and foundational components of a really great idea for a new premium content website. But unlike so many of my previous incarnations, I decided to further invest and start building it; that is, I\u2019ve taken off the sweats, placed my cleats into the starting blocks and decided to race with no guarantee of success.<\/span><\/font><\/p>

No one knows about it but me.  No one cares about it but me.  No one is waiting for it, expecting it, desiring it or demanding it.<\/span><\/p>

Yet.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

And while the path in my head appears straight forward, navigation is continually threatened by a never-ending brainstorm.  There is a constant desire to try something different, learn something new and explore alternative possibilities. Indeed the greatest barrier to the grand opening and launch of <\/font>rigourspursuit.com<\/a> is myself.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

So as I stated upfront: I\u2019ve got a plan for where to go, but it could terminate in a dead end. Nonetheless, I am excited to make the journey.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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