When I tell people I started a SaaS platform for micro-influencers their eyes glaze over. So, let me try this instead: I am starting a beekeeping co-op.

This post is a snapshot of my raw, unfiltered thinking, in the form of seven predictions about the next seven years. It’s as much a chance for me to share with a wider audience what I’ve learned so far as it is for fun and posterity.

For several years now we have received (mostly lowball) acquisition offers that I always quickly waved off: summit or die trying, right? Lately, though, I’m taking them more seriously. I’m ready to stop climbing. In fact, I just gave myself the hardest deadline of my life: I will sell my company, my baby, The H Hub, by May 15th, 2020 to the highest bidder.

I have four months left of cash in the bank to continue running my start up. Most nights it’s hard to fall asleep. My team of nine look to me as their leader. The potential of what the company “could be” taunts me. And perhaps most to the point, being thrown from the bull on his terms (instead of mine) would be really, really painful.

I have two options to dismount the bull on my terms: I can raise capital from outside investors or I can sell my company.

I heard a quote the other day: “I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think, you think, I am.” Read it three times cause it’s dense but it’s good. We build our identities around who we think, others think, we are. My dad still gets me out of bed every morning, whether he’s in the room or not. When you realize, though, that you’re living your life based on a perception of a perception you’re half-way to being free.