How Being An Entrepreneur Made Me An Ironman

Yes, being the co-founder of Arkadium for the last 20+ years has, at times, been extremely difficult. Yet, through all of the difficulty, my co-founder ( Jessica Rovello ) and I have always handled adversity well and were grateful for the lessons we learned along the sometimes-rocky road.  We’ve been battle tested for sure.

I am constantly hearing about how to be a better entrepreneur or leader. Mountains of new books, podcasts, articles, webinars are constantly fighting for attention in the already overcrowded advice space.

However, where’s the advice on how to be a better human, boss, athlete, father, whole person after you’ve achieved some success as an entrepreneur? Exactly. That space is as empty as an office building during the lockdown.

Please, don’t get me wrong. I’m still learning and growing as a business leader, but I found that I really wanted to figure out how I could apply the skills I learned in business—especially during and after the pandemic—to conquer other areas; areas that I too often ignored before lockdown.

And that’s why I registered and was able to finish a full Ironman in Des Moines, Iowa on June 12th 2022. That equates to a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike, followed by a full 26.2 mile marathon. In 90 degree heat.

So, what lessons did I learn by starting and running a games company that helped me accomplish what I would have thought was an impossible personal goal?

Lessons Learned:

1.    Get a coach –  I’ve had business coaches throughout my career. They’ve helped, A LOT. Some of them had experience in my industry, some of them were successful entrepreneurs who exited their businesses, some of them simply had growth and leadership lessons to be shared.  So, when I signed up for the Ironman, I hired three amazing coaches. my main Ironman coach Dede Griesbauer A swim coach Boris Talen, and a nutritionist Tiffany Cheg. They all had the inside scoop on how to complete the race and I didn’t have to figure it all out on my own. Get a good coach.

2.      Go Slow To Be Fast.  I've always hated the Silicon Valley mantra to “Move fast and break things.” Why break things if you don't need too?  In business and in endurance sports, the lesson is the same: Steady and consistent progress over time will always beat short bursts of speed that require long recoveries. Below is my training log from January to June, the blue line represents my overall fitness level, you'll see consistent steady progress with no spikes. By June, my fitness level was as high as professional endurance athletes. Go slow to be fast.

3.      Eyes On Your Own Paper, People – I’ve never fixated on my competition. Sure, I knew the companies in the industry, the products they released, some of their metrics, but I never stayed up and worried about them.  I just wanted to run my own company and focus on making Arkadium the best it could possibly be.  For the Ironman, I ignored the competitors and just kept focused on running my race. There would be people in front of me and people in back of me. In business, there are businesses that are more successful and less so than yours.  Don’t get lost in the leaderboard and just run your own race. Eyes on your own paper, people.

4.      Celebrate the Small Wins – At Arkadium we always celebrate the small stuff. When you show daily gratitude and appreciation for minor victories it creates momentum.  Finishing an Ironman is a daunting task when you look at it as a whole. Almost too intimidating to even get started. Instead of focusing on the final race, I focused on the daily small wins that would have a cumulative effect. For example, when I ate yogurt and granola for breakfast instead of a McDonald’s Sausage Egg and Cheese I silently celebrated. When I got out of bed at 5am when I really wanted to sleep in, I celebrated. Don’t wait for the end-goal to start celebrating. Enjoy the small wins along the way.

 5.      Embrace The Suck. This term, used in the military also works for business and endurance training. Just accept the fact that at times its gonna suck—embrace the hurt. Don’t avoid it, don’t drink alcohol to numb it, don’t lie to yourself – know it’s part of the game and power through it. When the mental or physical pain arrive, welcome it into your life, feel it, take action, and move on. Don’t let it control you. As a business owner, I knew there would be times I had to fire someone. I knew that there would be times that I would ship broken software. It’s OK. Recognize it, deal with it quickly, and move on. Embrace the suck.

6.      Use gratitude in dark hours – When things got tough in business, my mind would sometimes go to a dark place; the “what if” place. Over the years, though, I learned a few bio hacks I could use to reverse the fast slide down. I forced myself into the gym, I played high energy/positive music, and I made phone calls (not texts) to the people in my life who I was grateful. Its impossible to feel like shit when you’re expressing gratitude. During Ironman, things got TOUGH, VERY TOUGH, and when this happened, I started talking to my body. Giving thanks to my toes. Telling my lungs they were doing a great job. I listed all the reasons I appreciated each member of my family. I wrote a mental love letter to my wife Jess. Next thing I knew, (well not exactly), I was near the finish line in a much better mental place. Gratitude in the dark.

7.      Cut The Noise And Focus –  At Arkadium, our biggest successes have come when we focused on one big strategic thing. There was a time when we decided to cut 75% of our projects. Not easy, but by focusing on the one major goal, we reduced the noise and accomplished our most important strategic goal. I applied that to Ironman. Completing it was my big goal. I stopped drinking. I stopped going to parties. I limited the number of meetings I took and focused on my training. I put aside two to three hours everyday to train, and five to six hours a day on weekends. My remaining hours were dedicated to my family and my work. Cut the noise.

8.      No Cheating – Building a lasting business is hard. Don’t kid yourself. You don’t get there by taking shortcuts and skipping important steps. Sure, there are businesses that have shown hockey stick growth and created tons of value quickly almost immediately. To me, that’s like winning the lottery. Building a culture takes time. You can’t just put in a ping pong table and a Kombucha keg and say you have a great culture. That’s window dressing before you have a window. Building a culture takes time. It takes celebrating the lil wins and the big victories. For the Ironman, I never cheated on my training. I wanted to but who was I kidding? Oh right—myself. In six months of training, I might have missed two training sessions out of 360.  When my flight was cancelled and they put me at the airport hotel, I ran around the hotel 50 times to hit my training session. When I was skiing with the family, I woke up at 5am and ran for 2 hours before my full ski-day. No Cheating.

9.      Track everything and measure along the way.  In a digital business, you have the ability to track everything your users do. What webpage does a new user land on, how did they get there, what caused them to leave, when/why did they come back? Tons and tons of metrics exist for you to track. At Arkadium, we’ve figured out which are the most important metrics and look at them daily if not hourly in some cases. For Ironman, I identified by main metrics and tracked them religiously. Vo2 max tests, fitness levels, heart rate zones, sweat tests, blood work, etc. Put in the work, track what matters and watch the metrics move in the right direction. Track and measure.

 10.  Enjoy the Ride Jess and I have always focused on the NOW and have enjoyed the experience along the way. Things weren’t always easy, but we’ve appreciated the lessons learned. We knew it was not about the exit or creating a hit game, but rather enjoying the process and the people we’ve surrounded ourselves with. We celebrated the small wins and the large ones. For the Ironman, as much as I appreciated crossing the finish line, my favorite part was actually the six month process of training. I loved the way the water felt when I entered the pool. I enjoyed putting on my heart rate monitor, I loved looking at my daily metrics, and of course, I loved the nutrition I awarded after a long workout. It’s a ride—enjoy it. Even when it sucks.

-Kenny R.

-Arkadium co-founder and Ironman Finisher