Wordprezzie and The One Month Launch
written by Nick Cernis on July 28th, 2008
Just launch it
Remember when I told you that the best way to be more productive in life is to just launch it? This post is proof that I take my own advice.
I want to tell you about a fun new project that me and my partner Hayley launched today. It’s called Wordprezzie. I’ll explain what it is, how we made it happen in one month, and tell you how to do the same to turn your own ideas into live projects. Fast.
What’s Wordprezzie?
Wordprezzie is a growing goldmine of WordPress themes, tutorials, custom design, and coding help. We built it for gorgeous people like you with great big ideas bursting to get out on the Web fast, without spending thousands or earning a degree in Applied Hair Tearing at the University of Life.
Wordprezzie features hot illustration, great advice, and top theme ideas to buy or download for free — all in the fun, laid-back, alternative style I hope that you’ve come to expect from me.
Check out the site
Running a small biz, blogging, or freelancing? Check out Ice Cream Dream. Got a domain name but haven’t found time to do anything with it yet? Have a look at Changing Room. Running a WordPress blog but never thought about your site’s security? Read our first tutorial, WordPress Security Tips.
If you’ve never heard of the WordPress publishing system, you should know that it’s the best way to get your big idea online and keep your site looking fresh with new content. (It’s also what this site uses to drip-feed new posts to you.) If you’re thinking of launching a website soon or want a clean face for your existing one, get in touch with us for a free quote. Our clients say we’re lovely to work with, and we promise to make it easy for you too.
Ice Cream Dream is our first pro WordPress theme. It’s built with 5 colour options or ‘flavours’, together with a bold, customisable call-to-action button and a striking EasySwap logo and header. It’s perfect for businesses, entrepreneurs, and bloggers alike, and it’s packed with simple options to make it your own:
Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to Wordprezzie, and please write about us and tell your friends!
The One Month Launch
From here on it’s all about you, your big idea, and how to get it running just one month from now.
Just launch it?
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But, on its own, “just launch it” is pretty crappy advice. Here’s what the mantra means in a way you can break down, chew up, and spit out as some actionable ideas.
The fact is this: launching a big project can be scary. The fear of failure appears dark and dirty, just like the other things on your mind. The way people deal with it is to plan instead of taking action in the hope that, one day, 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, and all because someone told them they needed a watertight plan.
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 ‘5-year projections’, it’ll be almost meaningless. The only thing that projects reliably for that long is the Sun that shines out of Steve Jobs’ bum, and you shouldn’t be poking around in that with an expensive pen either.
So what’s the problem with planning? The problem is that it’s 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. (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.)
The one thing you must remember
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:
- 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
Once your business or grand idea is out there in the open, it’s much easier to gain momentum than when it’s stuffed down the sofa in a dodgy Amsterdam bar, crumpled up tight next to the guy with the dodgy beard and those other pipe dreams you hope to smoke one day.
(Less is never more, by the way. It’s why we have two words instead of one.)
The One Month Launch
You’ll notice that I used the term “unnecessary planning” in the list above. I’m not an umpalumpa. I don’t believe that you can just paint yourself orange, dye your hair green, do a little song and dance and create a world-beating chocolate factory overnight. If you could, I’d have made two by now.
While you don’t need a business plan (unless you’re trying to secure corporate funding), what you do need is to answer two simple questions:
- What the hell am I doing?
- What’s the absolute least that I can launch it with?
That’s it. Not “what will we do if 100,000 people sign up for our service in the first week?” Not “where will we seat all the supermodels who come for our impromptu volleyball championship?” Not “what if the taxman finds out that I’m taking home a 7-figure paycheck?” All of these are lovely problems to have.
‘Planning’ Wordprezzie:
Q: What the hell are we doing?
A: Creating the best WordPress themes and tutorials resource on the internet.
Q: What’s the absolute least we can launch with?
A: One paid theme, one free theme, and one tutorial.
That was it. Meeting adjourned. We had some tea and got cracking.
Your one month launch
Answer those two questions and then go for it. You’ll find that the rest solves itself as you go along. Take as many little shortcuts as you can. (You’ll notice that we re-used some of the design elements from Put Things Off on the Wordprezzie site. We also outsourced the support infrastructure to Get Satisfaction).
You’ve got a month to launch something. Anything! Just make it something that you love. The clock is ticking…
Less perfection, please
A final note for the perfectionists among you. Perfection is for Fairground Attraction. Go easy on the perfectionism. It can be a great asset later on, but it’s doing you no good at launch time. Trust me. I was once a perfectshionist. Now I just like annoying them.
Is Wordprezzie perfect? Of course not, but it’s out there and we’ve now got the luxury to plan as we go. It still has its tiny bugs and little typographic niggles that probably annoy me and no-one else. And if they bug you too?
Frankly, I couldn’t care less.
22 comments so far:
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28 Jul 08
22:07
Hayley
Manolo Blahniks never go out of fashion.
28 Jul 08
22:07
WPNinja
You should look after page Why buy from Wordprezzie? and check link to “pro themes” (localhost) :)
I wish you luck with this project :)
28 Jul 08
23:07
Seth
The code came from Bill & Ted.
29 Jul 08
01:07
Sunili
Well done Team Goburo! That looks fantastic! The one-month launch tactics are very inspiring, too :)
29 Jul 08
11:07
Khurt Williams
This post had me in tears. I’ve known for a long time that I am not enjoying my work in corporate IT. The love of what I do is being sucked out of me by one policy and procedure after the next. I’ve longed to go back to consulting and the title of CEO/CFO/CTO/Uber Geek. Well … here’s to my one month launch.
29 Jul 08
12:07
scoby
Great great post.
Best of luck with this new venture.
Should I expect to see a launch every month from now on?
Should be no problem ;)
29 Jul 08
13:07
Tim Brownson
As a Goburo evangelist, I can heartily recommend them for their brilliant customer service, high quality of work and sense of humor. Come on people, what more do you want?
29 Jul 08
14:07
Kelly
Nick,
Your “absolute least” included a really neat name!
That’s critical, because if you louse that up the launch with a boring name that doesn’t give a little information and pique curiosity, the growth you plan after the one-month launch will be slow, slow, and changing it later is like starting over.
Good luck with Wordprezzie!
Regards,
Kelly
29 Jul 08
15:07
Joanna Young
You’re going to have to change the name of this blog soon if you keep on getting things done!
Good luck with the new site – looks great – going to have a proper browse later
Joanna
30 Jul 08
01:07
Jill Chongva
That quote is from “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” :)
Love love love you guys!
j :)
31 Jul 08
01:07
Dave Navarro
“What’s the absolute least that I can launch it with?”
Great tip. People stress about launching with perfection. Just get the damned thing off the ground!
3 Aug 08
02:08
Sal
Fantastic post, althought I agree with the thought of a possible name change if you guys do keep rolling stuff out like it is no body’s business. Well, here it goes, my one month launch (Sept 1 goal) to freelancing. Thanks for the inspiration!
1 Oct 08
13:10
Seamus Anthony
Great post – kind of makes me think of this article http://snurl.com/burnplan, which is, I admit, by me, but is actually relevant.
4 Nov 08
06:11
FrugalNYC
Wow I’m hooked. I was tipped to your blog by a post on lifehack by Joel. I’m glad I visited. Time to check out more! I kind of did something similar to what this article says when I recently started blogging regularly. It been approximately a month :)