The now deceased local landmark Sun Dog reminds me of our existing website. It was great until years before it wasn’t and time took its toll on everything but the name until the name was no more because the name wasn’t enough. A contradiction in every way kind of how I never went there but was sad to see it go.

Websites luckily work a little differently since we that means GORUCK is not just a website but something about you never have a second chance to make a first impression even if you come highly recommended and people see your face first, usually.

So grow or die and we choose to grow and oops Sun Dog forgot if you’re a restaurant/bar the food better be good or the drinks better be good or the music better be good or people better be able to get what you’re selling nowhere else – and that my friends better be something really good. For Sun Dog it was none of the above and legacies die when new people forget why they existed in the first place.

GORUCK is an ecommerce company, meaning we don’t have retail shops aka brick and mortar and the only place you can get our stuff is on our website. Your purchases keep our employees employed and they keep Monster off the streets and we’re grateful to you for that. Sometimes the most obvious things go unsaid. Namely thank you.

And if we don’t learn how to be a leading ecommerce provider leveraging what we do really, really well – namely GORUCK gear and GORUCK Events – then we’ll go the way of the dinosaurs and I’m not talking about the alligator I’m talking about the T-Rex or the ones that were gone till what’s his name opened Jurassic Park. I digress.

Here’s the point: IT that means Information Technology which to me means our website and data and it’s been terrible since forever so let’s call it the single greatest consistent pain point throughout GORUCK’s existence. If you have an idea and you want to be successful, I don’t want you to follow our path. Drill Sergeant Hester told me years ago with a twinkle in his eye and a full night’s sleep behind him that pain and embarrassment are powerful motivators and flashback time for me because I can’t imagine much greater motivation to not do this website anymore.

Next post I’ll detail some of those specific problems, decision points, and mistakes that we which means me of course made and ultimately how an old friend named Tom saved everyone from themselves and most of all from me and God Bless him for that said the world.

My goal in further explanations of calamities I’m responsible for is probably because train wrecks make for interesting reads but more optimistically I want to streamline the process for future decision makers and entrepreneurs and bloggers and people who have no idea which is how I was till I stopped calling Drill Sergeant Hester “sir”. Or something like that. And apologies to all the special snowflakes lol but everyone faces the same problems and no matter what never call your Drill Sergeant anything but Drill Sergeant unless you prefer hard to smart and if you do you won’t for long.

Next IT update soon, new website launches next week, we pray.