On its own, “just launch it” is pretty crappy advice. After all, launching a big project can be scary. Often, the way people deal with that fear is to spend months locked in circular planning cycles instead of taking action. Perhaps they hope that, if they put things off long enough, the wind might change and all their problems will be carried up the chimney on the breeze, like watching Mary Poppins in reverse.
What happens instead is this: The Plan consumes them. Their business becomes the business plan. Their company, grand scheme, or trip around the world never happens.
The problem with planning
There are times when plans are worth making. But, more often than not, they’re simply a waste of time. There is no watertight plan. Leaking is part of life.
A week after you’ve stapled your 50 pages of slaved-over manuscript complete with five-year projections, it will be almost meaningless. Planning is a dynamic thing – there is no such thing as a finished plan. You can’t print it out and be done. You have to plan while you’re running your business and adapting to the environment, not before you even know if it’s going to work or not.
A week after you’ve ‘finished’ your plan, your competition will have adapted; that ski resort will have been booked up; a new product will have changed the game; those designer stilettos you saw in Oxfam will be out of fashion.1
How to launch faster
Forget great big lists. Forget what you know about business. Forget start-up school. Forget plans. Forget endless preparation. Forget the “what ifs?” and the “but what abouts?” When it comes to launching fast and reducing fear, there’s only one rule you need to remember.
To make it easier, I’ve cut it down to three words and spent four whole seconds of my life making sure that the only rule you need to remember very nearly rhymes:
Less is best.
It couldn’t be less complex, could it? But it’s true: less is best. Here’s why.
The magic of less
When you reduce your launch time to one month and force yourself to start thinking in terms of less instead than more, the magic of less flutters into life:2
- Less means no excuses to sit around dreaming
- Less means you can make it better later
- Less means less unnecessary planning
- Less means less emotional investment
- Less means less procrastination
- Less means less perfectionism
- Less means less upfront costs
- Less means less to go wrong
- Less means less questions
- Less means less decisions
- Less means less features
- Less means less risk
- Less really is best
What are you waiting for? Dream. Scheme. Simplify. You’ve got a month to launch something. Anything! Just make it something that you love.
Footnotes
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To think: you could have enjoyed them for a week instead of absentmindedly doodling ‘All work and no cut-price Manolo Blahniks with the metallic toe caps make Jill bitter, miserable, and rummaging in the freezer for more Ben and Jerry’s.’ ↩
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Forgive me for using ‘less’ instead of ‘fewer’ a few times here. It doesn’t read the same when you mix them. ↩
