I'm great at talking myself out of good ideas
Can anyone relate to this?
You come up with a new idea, you get excited about it, and start plotting out the path to future success (and $MRR). But within a week or two, you start seeing flaws in the plan, possible reasons why it won't succeed, competition or lack of competition, both becoming reasons not to do something.
I've noticed this has become a bit of a "superpower" (in the negative sense), that I can talk myself out of any good idea, find flaws and reasons why it won't work.
And I know this "ability" is overpowered, as I've seen lots of people who used to be stood by my side, at a similar point in their indie entrepreneur journey, execute on an idea that I saw flaws in that would have made me consider quitting, and made real, proper businesses from them.
I think this comes from my perfectionistic side, wanting to avoid mistakes, and I realise that's impossible to achieve.
Levelsio posted a while back about his success rate with making money with his projects, and put it at a 95% failure rate, so I know mentally that you have to put things out there to see what sticks.
I've gained some traction in the past with the 15 projects I have launched, but I feel like that knowing the cost of getting an indie business off the ground is making me not want to waste energy on ideas I can see flaws in, which leaves me in a catch 22 situation of failing to meet my goal of having a reliable side business because I'm not willing to really push an idea and then see it fail.
I'd love to hear if others can relate to this, and if so, how you've managed to overcome this tendency, if you have.
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I think a better validation process solves a lot of your problems.
If you have 5 people willing to pay you're unlikely to “talk yourself out of it”.
If you have no one willing to pay you're probably right to “talk yourself out or it”.
For help with bullet point 5 take a look at Jason Cohen's approach
That validation checklist links out to this article on SLC > MVPs and I really dig it. It's not the sort of thing that you wouldn't have heard if you've spent time around people talking about MVPs but it's a great reminder.
Link:
https://blog.asmartbear.com/slc.html
Great to hear from you Harry, cheers for the comment!
As usual, this makes a lot of sense. I've not seen that validation checklist before, so will take a proper look at that today.
Here's my thoughts on the
Try and get 5 people to commit to payingpoint:I've got an idea I'm considering pursuing, I'll sit down tomorrow and see if that's my best idea, and then get started on a landing page.
Pleasure. I think it's contextual.
Where can you talk potential customers hang out...
Maybe it means you going to a meetup for x niche, maybe it can all be done on email, maybe you post on a subreddit...
Read about how Patio would go to barber shops and talk face to face...
Cheers Harry. Think that's a broken link (it's added the link to the base of this URL), here's the fixed one: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2013/04/24/marketing-for-people-who-would-rather-be-building-stuff/
Will give it a read over.
I've been thinking of publishing a blog post about an element of this problem. What I've noticed is that compared to the population more generally, many founders are either naive or have a high risk-appetite (or both). How many people have you worked for, or do you know, that seem like they're incompetent and you can't believe they run a successful business? I imagine a fair few. The people that go all-in on an idea are typically naive to the challenges starting and running a business entails, they can't or won't think deep enough to see the potential obstacles, so they just get on with it and figure out each problem as it comes up.
My favourite founders are those that can think deeply about the problems, see nearly all the risks, but understand that if you really believe in the problem you're solving, and you've validated their an opportunity there, you just have to chip away at the problems one by one and not be scared off :)
It's a good question @blunicorn. I can definitely see that naivety, we'll make it work attitude in a fair amount of founders, and I think being disagreeable helps with this too, as you don't give a damn what others think, or if what you're putting out isn't ideal, as long as you're working towards your goals.
I agree my favourite founders are those who are fully aware, yet fully committed. The Collison brothers are an excellent example.
Let us know if you get around to writing that post!
will do :)
How you describe this, I feel I am a superhero (“in a negative sense”).
Sorry, that was poorly worded, I meant like having a negative superpower, an ability to do something that is not helpful.
I’m the same. Get an idea and then over analyze it. Feels too difficult and another idea comes along which is “easier” so focus on that. But over analyze and around we go. Sometimes going back to the first one.
I think the answer is to figure out the most basic steps to an MVP and get started.
Analyzing is good but needs to be in proportion to the investment (cash or time) you’re going to put in.
Easier said than done 😀
I’m doing my current project in public so there’s built in accountability to justify any decisions I make. I have to go with it or have really good reasons to stop.
Building in public is a great way to stay accountable, I hope you can make some progress on this one Paul!
Same, i have been putting my ideas down at the sight of troubles that might come.
Hopefully we can all gain comfort from the fact it's a common issue, and gain strength to overcome!
Yea the most successful way to get good at business is to do it. So spend as much time as possible making new ideas and eventually you'll get really good at finding and executing great ideas.
Use the 5PM model by Rob Walling to strees test your ideas
I hadn’t heard of that before, having googled it all I could find was this episode, will check it out, thanks @Metanet.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/episode-628-the-5-p-m-idea-validation-framework/id366931951?i=1000581524731
You and me both pal. ;)
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THis is a great and well written question, Fred. Thanks for writing this. Discovered a lot of interesting concepts from the comments.
Thanks for the kind words @Nithur ❤️
I've joined IH just to comment on this post as I have/had the same problem.
I have so many ideas jotted down in notepads, notes on my PC, and notes on my phone, I even message myself on Slack and send the ideas to my email. I'm always thinking of ideas. I found myself spending so much time doodling logos and thinking of the perfect name, designing websites in PS, and drawing wireframes and to-do lists. I struggle to sleep due to ideas and thoughts or concentrate during a conversation because something someone has said has triggered a new idea. This has gone on for 10 years. I am finally setting something up and will be launching it in a few weeks which has made me think about why I've been like this for so long.
I've always put it down to being risk-averse, not having the money to get started, or being too busy. I've always wanted everything to be perfect before I launch. Perhaps I've been too comfortable as I've got a good career with a great company or perhaps I'm a chronic procrastinator and would rather go out or play a video game than work on a business idea and make it real.
But more recently I've wondered if I have a form of ADHD? I don't know enough about it and I've not spoken to anyone about it, this is literally the first.
I feel comforted that other comments can relate to this. They do say the richest place in the world is the graveyard.
Hey @ProjectWalker, thanks so much for taking the time to register and share your vulnerable thoughts!
First off, I can totally relate. I spent 5 years from 2009-2014 having lots of ideas, writing up 7 page documents on all the features needed, doing a little design and sometimes even dabbling with code. None of those ideas ever saw the light of day.
Like you, after a while we (I was working with @mikeaag at the time) got tired of this, and Mike suggested we focus solely on our ability to launch something and get good at that. It didn’t matter what we built, as long as we launched.
We set ourselves the goal of launching six projects in six months. It was intense, but we did it and learnt a tonne. Since then I’ve launched 15 projects, including a couple that were sold for small fees.
We then wrote a short, free book about it called Learning To Launch, it might be worth you skimming over it if you have time: https://learningtolaunch.co/
The other thing I would say here is, you’re already above average on the entrepreneurial scale. The fact you have ideas, dabble with them and beat yourself up that you’ve not launched any shows you have the drive most don’t have.
In my experience it’s just a case of learning what your blind spots are, the fears you have that are holding you back, or the comfort zone you don’t want to leave. Then design yourself a system (like launching a project in the next 30 days) to overcome it.
I hope that helps, feel free to reach out if I can be of any help.
Need Idea Validation -
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/need-idea-validation-typing-sql-scripts-for-data-analysis-or-retrieval-is-hard-8a53680c37
Thank you
Are you me haha? I don’t know if this is helpful as I’m trying: I’m working my ideas out early and let the market validate it. I’m a terrible idea validator so I don’t trust myself doing it anymore.
Yeah that's the key I think, prioritising the best ideas and looking to validate them as early as you can.
All the best with it @DaveVNguyen!
I have had the same issue multiple times. Apart from trying to perfect everything, somewhere the fear of my first failed idea is making me second guess everytime I have tried making some progress.
good
I can understand this very well. I have lost so many years because of this but I refuse to do this anymore.
I gave up perfection for action. I want to try stuff with being bothered about failures.
It's really difficult to keep going even with all my resolve but I want to make it a habit.
What stage are you at currently @ardzehn? What's the next step you're trying to overcome?
I am currently trying out the tech stack I will be using by building a simple todolist.
I already did some work but I want to try out the tech stack to be aware of the edge case and trade offs.
The project I want to build is a webapp for sharing list of links with one short url.
Think of it as a condensed Twitter thread for sharing resources.
Gotcha, thanks for the details @ardzehn.
What's your goal in the next 6-12 months? Is it to build and launch something, or to build a business?
If it's the former, dabbling in the tech and spending time there makes some sense.
If it's the latter, then you have to be careful here, as you may well be procrastinating the proper work of validating your business idea for the safe comfort of looking productive dabbling in tech. I think @harrydry's comment in this thread is one I needed to read, and might be useful in your situation too?
I am acutely aware of issue you are cautioning me about and I appreciate that. I agree with others recommending validating ideas as crucial before going ahead with execution. Many people here have more experience than me and I am always ready to learn from their advice.
This is the first time I am building something online so this is more of a learning to build and launch.
If I wait for validating the idea I may end up procrastinating more. But I will do it for future projects for sure.
Ah that's totally fair. I'd say it then depends if your goal is to learn tech, or to learn to launch.
If it's to learn to launch, I'd advise setting yourself a short-term deadline (4-6 weeks), narrowing scope to fit into that (and narrowing more to account for unknowns), working out where you'll launch (hacker news / product hunt are great shouts) and then putting a date in the diary.
Even better, share it with others to keep you accountable, either specific people, or online in communities like this, on twitter etc.
The reason I say this, is I spent years building things and never launching. Back then I was working with @mikeaag, and we set ourselves the goal of launching six projects in six months.
We wrote a short book about our learnings, it's free to read online, may be of use!
LearningToLaunch.co
That's very actionable advice, I will definately apply it.
I will like to read your book, can you share the link?
I am on Twitter sharing my journey, I should probably post a into here too.
Just yesterday I was thinking of doing a thirty days challenge to complete the product and post it on Twitter. I am already posting about my learnings while testing the tech stack.
Ah nice @ardzehn, seems like you're on the right track! The link the book is at the bottom of my last post, and here:
https://learningtolaunch.co/
Thanks @fredrivett
No worries, feel free to reach out if you've any questions.
I am going through the same dilemma.
Now I think my last two projects had a better chance of success than the current one.
I might be wrong. But I guess this has to do with our personality type.
Try taking the big five personality test.
A person low in conscientiousness has a problem staying focused.
Give this article a read - https://medium.com/@kyleschutter/low-conscientiousness-4e5d66c4b152
Let me know your conscientiousness score if you take the test.
Hey @rachana, interesting! I just did the test and score quite highly in conscientiousness, and think that's reflected in my career so far as well as the number of side projects I've worked on and shipped.
I've built systems that help me to stay focussed, such as time tracking with Toggl, doing the pomodoro technique with Emphasis (but 50m at a time, not 25m) and staying accountable to others on my goals.
My scores came out as:
And conscientiousness specifically breaks down as:
Obviously these are self reported, so I could be kidding myself, but I tried to be honest and the results feel about right to how I view myself, at least.
Honestly my biggest problem is a combination of overthinking and perfectionism, trying to de-risk every scenario by working it all out. Interestingly this doesn't reflect in the smaller things (I'm not a planner, I much prefer to go with the flow) but in the larger commitments, I find myself pulling away to work everything out, which can have some benefits, but is probably out of kilter for me.
You score very high in every trait.
Interesting to see.
Obviously this is self-reported, so I may be deceiving myself, but I feel like it's in the right rough direction.
Also worth noting that this is something I've worked on and improved in over time.
Forget about validation, market-fit, etc. You need to get over the fear of public judgement of your projects. You also need learn to embrace criticism. You need to debut imperfect projects in the spotlight. If you're going after a market where the app must be PERFECT, it's way too competitive of a market. The only markets worth going after are markets where the app can be less than perfect, and still get initial interest. Imagine the Amish carpenter who intentionally puts imperfections on their work, because only God is perfect. The goal isn't perfection - it's progress.
And frankly, apps just have a high failure rate - it's the nature of the tradeoff- between scaleability and success odds. High scaleability, low success odds. Low scaleability, higher success odds. It's not you, it's market dynamics. Doing something local is a great alternative too, or both.
"Forget about validation" goes a bit to far, but the rest is so true, nice said Mark!
Totally are the goal isn’t perfection but progress, I actually wrote a blog about that a few weeks ago.
I don’t think fear of putting my stuff out there is my issue though, it used to be having spent years on projects that never saw the light of day, but I’ve launched 15 projects and the most recent only took 89h all in.
I agree I need to shift mentality and look to get feedback earlier rather than polishing something to that level before launching, though.
Your point about the trade-off of scaleability and success odds is a good one. I decided today that my next project is going to be a productised service aimed at a niche that’s got a lot of built up demand, and I’ll aim to charge a high MRR for the high touch service.
Sounds good. Productized services are probably good tradeoff between startups and starting a small business (which sells services). They're still intangibles, so there's the trick of selling abstract things. There's been a lot of success stories with them I've heard about, definitely more bona-fide successes there than with software startups I've heard about.
Yeah I think it's a good next step, and you can then hopefully take those learnings from what people will actually pay for, to create an automated product that you can sell to them, or folks like them.
It seems a good next step, rather than yet another passion project that has an ill-defined market.
I think I get where you're at - I've been there (or am there). A good project, in my opinion is a good balance between heart and brain. I've done things that were 100% brain, and also 100% heart. The trouble with all brain, is it's just not motivating enough when things get boring and hard. And all heart projects, well they could be hopeless (the ill defined markets you pointed out). They're both painful, lol.
My latest project, VCvsME.com, it's probably 70% heart, 30% brain. I can easily run it for the next 10 years, no problem. So I'm dedicated. Does it need to be huge? Not really, since it's also a passion project. However, it's also not a great make money NOW kind of project. If that's what you're looking for - you might also want to consider lead generation (in addition to productized services). I've heard it said, that lead generation is the best type of business (online) to start and I kind of agree.
I think that's a great way of viewing it, some advice out there is like "just do the horribly boring work of serving a market you and no-one else wants to serve" and that ultimately is 100% brain and no heart, and it won't last unless you've got some super human drive.
Finding the balance is what we need, but I'd think most of us lean more towards the heart, so listening to the brain advice more than the heart is probably needed to equal out the pendulum swing.
Thanks! I agree. A balance is needed - the exact ratio which probably varies for every individual. I don't even consider doing all brain projects anymore of my own initiative. I'd do an all heart project, but only as a hobby - not to try to to make any money.
Oh and here's your personal invitation to join VCvsME.com - it's all about entrepreneur networking and improving pitch decks. Good luck!
My advice may seem controversial initially, but give it a minute. Sometimes you need to unplug from all the advice and googling and allow room for your idea to germinate. Everything has a season, and a seed needs time to settle into the soil before it can be disturbed.
A seed also needs faith from the planter, which is you. No one will ever believe in your idea more than you. You must develop that trust in yourself and be at peace with guiding your ship.
Now is your season for less, not more, information and getting to know and trust you. It will all work out in your favor. It already has!
I agree it's very easy to continually be chasing the next thought leader who will provide the key breakthrough I've been looking for, and sadly the world doesn't work that way.
The secretary problem shows that it's possible to have a roughly optimal number of options before deciding on a path ahead, and I think this applies to gathering information before decision making in general.
When you know nothing, the best thing to do is learn, but after a certain point more learning is just procrastination.
I can definitely relate to this.
First, I really liked the projects you made, especially https://arethensawatchingme.com. You consistently came up with small projects that deliver value. And I think that is wonderful.
Right now Im struggling with starting a business in an area that i know is deeply troubled. For years I have been a wantrepreneur and I am still afraid of starting something. I worry about being a solo developer, not being able to make large changes quickly to accommodate any issues the end user may have. I worry about the legality of the business, "how do i not get sued?". All these thoughts are keeping me from something I deeply long to accomplish, starting my own business.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I really appreciate not feeling alone in the struggle.
Thanks for the kind words @yelk11.
I feel like a lot of us fall into this trap. It's easy to look around at what others are doing and get discouraged, and then stay in our comfort zones.
Sometimes the comfort zone is in doing nothing, sometimes its in working on side projects and never launching (I did that for a long time), and sometimes its in working on side projects and launching them, but never really giving them a chance at becoming businesses, either by building the wrong thing, or never marketing them enough.
I think the key to your future concerns mindset is just focussing on the next steps you can take. Humans have a remarkable ability to grow over time, and overcome far more than we realise. If you just take the next steps continually over the next year, you'll make huge progress.
And on top of that, many of the future issues we project and try to solve in advance won't even come about (I'd bet only a tiny % of indie businesses get sued, for example).
This graphic is an obvious, yet helpful reminder:
I suffer from this as well and I think it's a form of self sabotage. I can't fail if I was "smart" enough to see how it would fail and not pursue it. I think the advice below of setting out concrete validation criteria is how to get through it.
You are right sir.
I totally agree on the inflated ego, self sabotage point. It's very easy to consider yourself too smart to get your hands dirty, to actually enter the ring and put something on the line.
I've been thinking about this recently, and will likely write something about it in this weeks blog post.
I have this same problem too.. In the past, I have actually abandoned ideas thinking they were not unique, or there is already too much competition, or some other reason that i made up in my head without any real evidence and then watched someone else do the exact same idea and gain considerable success 😅 (maybe they were the secret sauce and I would've failed, but I didn't even try).
I don't have any solutions to offer though. I am still trying to find something I can build 😐
Can totally relate to that @spy16. I've been around long enough to see many many folks at a similar stage execute on ideas I found "serious" faults in.
It's easy to be the critic on the sidelines, far messier to be in the ring putting in the work.
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