“I’ve had many many many products, the vast majority of the things I’ve written, or created, the organisations I built fail, but the reason I’ve managed a modicum of success is because I just keep shipping.” - Seth Godin
“Finishing” or “shipping” things is essential to success. For the longest time, I’ve been very afraid of “shipping” things. There are so many reasons to hesitate to ship something. All sorts of things could go wrong which could have negative consequences.
However, over time I feel I have gradually shifted from not only not fearing shipping, but actually fearing not shipping. I think this is a healthy fear for anyone doing startups and can be applied elsewhere too.
Fear of not shipping my blog posts
Every two weeks, on a Sunday, I wake up and I sit down and write my blog post. As I reach around 700 words, I start to make sure it flows well, and that each section is in the right order and that there are no typos. Then, after I’ve finished, I spend a little time reading it through and wondering whether I have missed anything or whether it could be better.
That is when the fear hits me. I know that if I aim for perfection, I will delay shipping greatly. So I quickly read it through, and then hit publish. This is how I’ve kept blogging consistently, and it’s also how good discussion arises. If it’s perfect, where is the room for discussion. More importantly, is perfect even possible?
The great thing about this is that my blog posts so far have triggered off some absolutely fantastic discussions and I’ve been delighted to have received some fascinating comments which I’ve learned a huge amount from. Therefore, since I am shipping consistently and benefiting from it, it becomes something I want to do more and I feel I could realistically do more.
Fear of not shipping my startups
Another area I have found this “fear of not shipping” really applies for me, is with my startups. I’m passionate about creating my own scalable startup, but a startup is something you can feel very attached to. You don’t want people to see it rough around the edges. You want it to be perfect before you let the world see it.
Over time, I’ve realised that waiting for it to be perfect does not achieve the most success for me. The 80/20 rule really applies here, and I’ve found time and time again that the final 20% of the benefits of working on a product or a feature in a product genuinely can take 80% of the time you work on it if you are not careful. This is very much in line with the lean startup techniques which I’m a huge fan of.
With my previous startup, I took 4 months to launch it before I received any real feedback from users. With my current startup, I was very keen to launch it swiftly. I questioned everything I was building into the first version in order to keep it very minimal. I even sent an email to people saying it would take 1 week, and it eventually took 7. As I approached the end of the 7th week, a fear hit me that I had been working on it for too long without getting feedback. So I “shipped”. It was buggy, and it even let people pay without an automatic upgrade process and without some of the paid features even working. You know what? It worked out very well. I even had my first paying customer 4 days later.
I think getting into this mentality of fearing not shipping more than fearing shipping is a very important mental shift with huge benefits. For me, it has turned out very well.
Creating a fear of not shipping
How can you change your mindset into a fear of not shipping rather than a fear of shipping? I doubt it can happen just by reading a post. I suggest you try shipping a few things before you think they are ready. I am confident you will be pleasantly surprised, and when it happens, keep doing it. Soon you will fear spending too long on things.
I find this topic fascinating. I’d love your thoughts in the comments.
Photo credit: Pete Snelling
People who know me know that I like to make things systematic when I can, and doing so helps me make sense of things and have confidence in my actions. In addition to making things systematic, I also believe greatly in avoiding assumptions, and I think it is possible to embrace both of these ideas.
New Year, new goals?
The start of a new year is a time at which many of us reflect on the past year and set some goals for the next year. This year, I’m doing a little of that, but on the whole I know what I want to achieve and I have become quite comfortable with setting and adjusting goals throughout the year rather than limiting my opportunity for change to a single point each year. It is this idea of adjusting goals which I would like to reflect on and discuss instead.
Adjusting goals
I have found that as time has gone on, the main goal I want to achieve has changed a lot. In other words, my own definition of success has changed. This is a change that has happened as a result of my learning over a year or so of working on startups, but I doubt whether I would have adjusted my goal if it wasn’t for all the learning around “testing hypotheses” which I’ve been embracing.
How my own definition of success changed
I’ll be the first to admit that when I first got hooked on the idea of startups, the goal in my mind was monetary. I wanted to be “financially free” so that I could do all the things I wanted to do but was unable to do due to money. So my first startup was a big idea. It could change the world, at least I thought, and I would be rewarded enormously for what I would do - given time. I then realised that in order to get there, persistence was one of the vital aspects. After trying a few different ways in order to reach the success I had chosen, I realised that I was unhappy more than I was happy, and I saw no reason for this.
My second startup, came to me in order to serve a very different purpose for me. I could have easily oriented the second idea just like the first idea - grow fast by keeping it free, but this time things were different and I wasn’t letting myself go down that route again. It was time for a change. So what triggered the change? I realised that my goal had shifted - I was no longer purely after the money, I was fighting for my time.
My new goal (definition of success) is to be able to do whatever I want with my time.
Goals trigger actions
This change would not be half as interesting if it wasn’t for the fact that this change in what I defined as success has actually affected my actions in a huge way. I wrote an article recently about working in waves in order to bootstrap a startup. With my new goal, I don’t want to be doing things by this method, since it involves me spending time on things I don’t want to be doing. Some amount of time doing things you don’t want to be doing is fine and could be argued necessary, but I think there’s a threshold that has to exist.
So now, due to my new goal, I try to act each day towards reaching that goal. This results in very different actions than with my previous definition of success.
Is it time to question your goals?
This is now my current definition of success and is what I spend my time working towards. It may change again in the short or long term, and it may well not be the goal other people are pursuing. I know that love and happiness are other very worthwhile goals, but they are not very specific, and I think specificity is important. With my goal, I can aim for a certain passive monthly income which frees up my time.
What is your current definition of success, and have you questioned it recently?
Photo credit: Angie Torres
I would like to ponder whether making mistakes is actually a necessary part of the process of achieving whatever form of “success” we are striving for. I’d love your thoughts in the comments.
A topic revisited
Many, many people have discussed the idea of failing in order to succeed. The reason I’m bringing it up again is that I’ve found writing a blog post forces me to lay out the thoughts in my head in an organised way, and this then means that I think more clearly about the subject I write about. I also love to hear from others and I’ve learned a lot from comments in the past.
Striving for success
I think many of us are desperate to succeed and are striving for answers on how we can reach our goal more quickly. Whether the goal is financial, completing a sense of purpose or achieving freedom, we all want to reach “success”. Therefore, we really should take on board any techniques we can to get there.
Is the answer obvious?
Surely there is empirical evidence that the answer is obvious: making mistakes is not necessary in order to succeed. There are many examples out there of people “getting lucky”. What I’d like to pose is the question of whether making mistakes is in fact the safest way to reach success. Surely doing it any other way is like a lottery?
Characteristics of entrepreneurs
So is venturing out and starting work on something without expecting to make mistakes an unwise move?
Typical characteristics that may come to mind for what makes a successful entrepreneur is things such as not listening, sticking to a vision, knowing they will succeed:
“Entrepreneurs are non-conformists. Being non-conformists, they are innately driven to differentiate from the status quo. They don’t listen when someone tells them something cannot be done.” - Bill DAlessandro
If this is what we should be doing as fledgling entrepreneurs, does it leave room for learning?
Certainty and passion misplaced?
Maybe there is room for mistakes and learning as well as passion, drive and certainty.
One of the most important lessons I feel I have learned so far on my own journey of startups is what I choose to aim for. When I first started, I was set on making a specific idea succeed. I soon stumbled a couple of times and realised that setting my sights on a specific idea succeeding was a bad strategy. I now put all my effort in succeeding with a startup, not a specific idea. This realisation was really invigorating and has made me much more comfortable with pivoting.
A new type of entrepreneur?
If the reasoning is right so far, then is a new type of entrepreneur required? Perhaps someone who embraces change and treats all their ideas as hypotheses. Someone who goes out there and rigorously tests their hypotheses. This is the idea behind the Lean Startup and Customer Development and support for these ways of thinking is growing fast. Or is this what successful entrepreneurs have always done and we are only now uncovering the methods?
Aim to make mistakes?
So this brings us to my final thought. Should we actively aim to make mistakes? There are many people who say it is wise to embrace making mistakes:
“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.” - Neils Bohr
“I embrace losing. It is how I learn.” - Mark Suster
The whole idea of failure is also one of the main reasons that I aim to visit Silicon Valley in the future and experience the culture over there:
“I think embracing failure is one of the things that makes this country such a great place to do business in. In many parts of the world, if you fail once, you are done. People won’t touch you with a ten foot pole. But here in the US, it’s almost a badge of honor.” - Fred Wilson
Is it even possible to succeed without enduring the experience of not getting something quite right?
Is it more productive to aim to make mistakes, or is it more productive to aim not to make mistakes but handle them and keep moving forward?
I’d love your thoughts.
Photo credit: Andy Roberts
