Being a solo founder means making mistakes. But it also means knowing how to turn those mistakes into opportunities.

Without realizing it, I had created the first step of my hiring process. If you ignored the date? You might miss a frame in a video. If you took the time to correct me? You are exactly the kind of serious person I want to work with.

And it’s true. We are building an in-house editing team. We need people who spot the small details.

Then, the replies started coming in. Editors were emailing me: "Hey, I think your date is wrong?"

That’s when it hit me.

I replied to them: "You are absolutely right. I made a mistake. But you catching it proves you have the attention to detail I’m looking for."

But I stopped myself. I have too much on my plate to panic over a typo. I decided not to spam everyone's inbox with an apology. I would just let it be.

Her phone pinged. My wife (who is also a user on the platform) looked at me and said: "You just told everyone the deadline is December 6, 2024. That was a year ago."

My heart stopped. I wanted to jump out of bed and send a frantic "CORRECTION" email to thousands of people.

It is what it is. I pushed the button.

The deadline was supposed to be December 6, 2025.

I know, 4 days is tight. In a perfect world, I should have given them a month's notice. But when you are a solo founder changing the platform's entire core, "perfect" is a luxury you don't have. Things were moving fast, I had so much to do, and I just had to get it done.

It wasn't just a newsletter. It was a major announcement. We are pivoting from an open marketplace to a closed, in-house agency model.

I wanted to give everyone 4 days to download their data before the switch.