Going All In, or Not

[Choate]

Just wanted to share Seth Godin's latest blog post which I think is relevant to many aspects of entrepreneurship and peoples' questions on here. It can be interpreted differently depending on your situation, and maybe its not applicable at all. Here it is:


------

Taking the plunge.

Maybe that's the problem.

Perhaps it's better to commit to wading instead.

Ship, sure. Not the giant life-changing, risk-it-all-venture, but the small.

When you do a small thing, when you finish it, polish it, put it into the world, you've made something. You've committed and you've finished.

And then you can do it again, but louder. And larger.

It's easy to be afraid of taking a plunge, because, after all, plunging is dangerous. And the fear is a safe way to do nothing at all.

Wading, on the other hand, gets under the radar. It gives you a chance to begin.

------

To me, this means taking small actionable steps one by one and delving into the process. Not worrying about the big picture, end result, and getting it all done at once. I found some value in his post, hopefully you guys can too.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Get Right]

I don't dance with fear.

 

[DeletedUser394]

You should include a link.

 

[Bigguns50]

I don't dance with fear.

Nice.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[The Grind]

You should include a link.

Its his newsletter

 

[DeletedUser394]

Its his newsletter

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2014/10/taking-the-plunge.html

 

[Choate]

Not trying to make this into a Seth Godin thread or anything but I think the man is full of gold nuggets. This is one more post he made recently, another relevant. Last one I swear.



The dorm-room startup mindset
"Selling enough records to make another record."

Rick Rubin started DefJam in his NYU dorm. Steve and I built TSR in Curtis Hall, and I went on to build my publishing business in my wife's dorm at NYU. It happens more than you might guess, and the reason it works is something you can use, even if you're not in college or living in a dorm...

You sell enough records to make another record.

You're not trying to sell the company or to make a huge payroll or to make sure the stock options are in place. You're building something.

The only way to build something when you don't have money to invest is to make something so great that people will pay for it in advance, that they'll eagerly sign up to use what you're making. Now not later. Now when it's new. When it's useful and fresh and interesting.

Too often, we look at the serious nature of starting a business (and worse, our imagined serious implications of failing when we do so) and we forget about useful, fresh or interesting. We forget to do that thing that might not work, to expose ourselves to things that are generous and new and fun.

You don't have to quit your day job to start something, just as you don't have to drop out of college to do so. You have weekends and evenings and all that time you're online...

Make another record.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[armitage79]

This hits close to home. Last year I started a new venture with limited funds which was a quick success. This year scaled it up 10x and should do as well. Fingers crossed