I will share with you how I build my company everyday to survive for the long term and the importance of going……. slow. But first, we must speak about trees.

Did you know a tree can break under the weight of its own fruit?

Yes, a tree can overbear itself with more weight than it can handle and subsequently collapse. Not only a branch but I’m talking the whole damn tree.

I never knew about this phenomenon but searched it up after thinking about how I run my small business. I am obsessed about slow, meaningful, and long-term growth. Small and purposeful efforts where the business grows and bears more fruits slowly over a long duration.

The analogy of the tree collapsing under its own fruit hit me when a fellow business owner and long-term friend of mine told me about someone he knew that hired 2-3 team members. They hired these team members within a year of opening their services based business. For me that felt reckless to aggressively increase the head count of the team in the early stages of the business.

Why?

Because for me, in that situation I crunch the numbers. I quickly determine that to hire a new team member I must:

1. organise a job ad,
2. spend company resources interviewing,
3. accept I might not find a valid candidate,
4. ensure correct working rights,
5. speak with my lawyers to ensure I am compliant with Australian (super complex) law,
6. onboard a new team member,
7. perform …

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Back when I worked for the Australian Federal Government I read a book called Rework by Jason Fried and DHH. They presented ready-to-go implementable methods to work better in a team and as a business. It left a profound impact on me to this day where I arrange my business around several of those methods.

As a junior-fresh-out-of-uni working for the Australian Government, I met with my manager every week in a fixed meeting that drained my soul. Week by week nothing changed in a significant way, therefore the meeting consisted of nothing meaningful but instead it always led to a general chit chat. After I read the Rework book it presented a better method: daily write ups about what a team member worked on for a given day. This type of automatic check-in allows the whole team to receive situational awareness on what everyone else worked on, without the constant and redundant meetings.

I felt excited and brought it up with my manager. Back then I thought if I discovered a revolutionary idea to work better in a team then everyone would be super keen to implement it. I told him about the book I read, the method, and my idea to implement it for our team. I remember his face to this day: he nodded his head, said “wow, what a great idea”, and then progressed to say “I prefer meetings, but thanks”.

I felt shocked! He asked not one question about the method and automatically dismissed it …

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A local law firm and client of mine reached out to request help with the setup of an Audiovisual link (AVL) for an upcoming court case in country South Australia. Courts use AVL technology around Australia to allow lawyers, witnesses, and others to participate through a video call for a court case. For me, a video call sounds much more comfortable than several hours of driving to a small town far far away. I’m all for it.

AVL technology, or better known as video conferencing, rose in popularity within Australian courts during the pandemic back in the early 2020’s but existed as far back as 2015 in SA Courts.

Not One to Rule Them All

I researched AVL and its usage in courts across Australia and found that there lacks a consistent standard AVL technology. Multiple video conferencing tools exist on the market and courts use a variety of them such as Webex, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and a whole bunch of others. Therefore, the technology for the AVL depends on the court and what they accept.

Courts of recent started to limit the options and instead select a mandatory software that they expect everyone to use. In the case for my client the country court in South Australia requested them to use Webex with an SIP address. A what address? Yes, an SIP address, an older technology nearly no one knows about.

Think of an SIP address like the uniqueness of a telephone number. …

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