Last night we hosted our “Story Tour” at the Good project. The turn out was great (thanks guys!) I counted real quick and think there were 38 of us crammed in the kitchen and living room of the S unit. A tight fit by any stretch of the imagination.

Its funny, we asked everyone to come hear about the adventure and even said that we would talk about all the things that went wrong on the project. Because we want people to be able to learn from our mistakes as well. Anyway, when someone finally did ask the question “What went wrong?” we kind of choked. Not that nothing went wrong, at times it seemed that everything that could go wrong did but because its not what you are used to talking about.

I think the biggest thing we did wrong on the project was take way to much time designing the site and floor plans. We were burning through cash while trying to be idealists and big picture thinkers. Not that we should not have thought about the project that way but we should have done that for 2 weeks and got to work not 5 months. In hindsight we could have used our time more wisely and hung on to more of the cash we were spending.

There were other things wrong and we covered several of them, but that one stands out the most.

Even though we prepared ourselves to talk about that stuff it still felt weird. I think there is some cultural astigmatism we need to get over in this country about being honest. It feels like telling anything but a polished perfect story will make people think you failed.

So I learned something. You can have all the good intentions of being honest but when it comes right down to it you have to follow through even if its uncomfortable. I believe that people (including me) want the honest truth not a shiny marketing picture of reality. Because once you “buy” that picture its going to disappoint you.

Thanks to everyone who came out. We will be doing more of those for sure!

And for discussion sake. Do you like to be told the truth? Are you sick of being “marketed” to?

Levi