So we can learn to pick ourselves up
I had one of the worst days I have had for a while today. One of those days where you just want to go back to bed, and stay there.
I’ve got a bad cold at the moment. Headaches, congestion, persistent cough. It’s making me miserable.
And today was the launch of cohort 3 of our flagship course Your First Ten Million Yen.
I’ve put a huge amount of work into this course. We’ve been preparing for the launch since early December. Had a few hundred people on the waiting list.
This morning at 9am we went live. Emails went out and people received the link to the booking page.
And that is where things went wrong.
I started receiving emails about people not being able to complete payments. Didn’t know what was going on, but eventually I figured it out.
It seems like our new fancy platform added .00 to our yen price for some reason. And this led them to try to charge our customers 100x the price for the course.
Fortunately none of those transactions went through, but all the people who were trying to sign up for the course were getting frustrated as their credit cards were being declined. I started replying to emails and trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
Then our Stripe account got shut down.
So I reluctantly turned off the sales page and emailed everyone that we were having problems and would try again on Monday.
At first I just sat there feeling very sorry for myself. I was exhausted and just wanted to turn the computer off and go to bed. It was a hopeless, defeated feeling. I’ve felt this way before, but not for a while.
Then I talked to my wife, and some friends.
After a couple of hours, I started feeling better and came up with a plan B.
Once I had the plan B in hand I felt much better. Having options is the key to banishing despair.
It’s not fixed yet (far from it) but I know what we will do if things don’t work out.
There’s probably a lesson there somewhere.
When things go wrong, first deal with the immediate situation. Then allow yourself to feel bad. Then talk to people and try to figure out a solution. Then, once you are feeling a bit better, start working on implementing the solution.
Allowing yourself to feel bad while being aware of why you feel bad and that feeling bad will pass is possibly the most important step here.
Trying to ignore the feelings results in stress and being overwhelmed by them leads to hopelessness.
Today was not the most fun day, but things like this are part of the process of trying new things and making stuff. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and this kind of stressful experience is the price of admission.
In hindsight, we should have tested the payment system by creating a dummy course and ‘selling’ it for 200 yen or something. Then we could have tried making purchases, refunds, etc.
Something to keep in mind for next time.
I’m sorry to have wasted everyone’s time today. We’re going to figure out the next step and get everything sorted out by next Monday.
I’m going to watch The Dark Knight with my granddaugher now, then have a bath and go to bed early. We’ll get back into it again tomorrow.
(if this hasn’t put you off, you can still sign up for the waiting list for the course here)
How about you? Any similar (or worse!) stories you could share in the comments to make me feel better?
It must have been very frustrating, but you were the ultimate gentleman in dealing with my appeals for help, and I appreciate it. I hope your cold clears up soon.
Thanks Jeremy! Feeling a lot better today 🙂
This isn’t any help at all – but I’ve had the exact same thing happen to me…only problem was, they went through. Trying to reverse the payments is an absolute nightmare and pretty much torpedoes any credibility you might have had right from the start.
Congratulations on making it through/around this issue – hopefully smoother sailing from here on out!
What a nightmare. Sorry to hear you had to deal with that.
I guess I should be grateful they tried to charge 100x the amount, which was unlikely to go through on most people’s cards, rather than 10x which might have gone through… lesson learned though. I will definitely be testing things more thoroughly in the future!
Sorry to hear about all the problems you had and continue to have with feeling ill. Here in the southern part of the US, there is a lot of flu/cold/respiratory issues going around.
Thanks for sharing your situation here. I think it’s good for people to hear that we ALL have problems. You were right to acknowledge the situation, analyze what was what, and come up with a Plan B.
When in a difficult or confusing situation, I always rely on the word of the Serenity Prayer: “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference between the two.” Or in other words, control what you can, control the heck out of it, and stress less about what you can’t control. And it sounds like that’s exactly what you did. Good on you!
I enjoy reading your weekly posts and advice.
THANK YOU
Thanks Keith! Really appreciate you reading my scribblings all this time.
The serenity prayer is one of my favourite things too. So much wisdom in such a compact form.