A lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about how to start (how many people have you seen go to the same “start your startup” meetups for years without actually starting anything?), and I’ve spent the past weekend beginning to draft blog posts and make lists of topics for this blog. These are great tactics for getting a good blog started and seeding lots of posts, and I think this one might actually take off. I was going to compare launching a new blog to launching a startup, but that’s crap. But I’m excited -that is what the two have in common. You can read about my motivation for starting this blog here.
Today it was driving me CRAZY that people (looking at you Shaherose) were saying to me “I saw on Twitter that you’re starting a new blog, and I love the topic” but then I have NOTHING to show you when you get here. In my opinion that is WASTE, and there is nothing I hate more than WASTE (we’ll get into that in depth later on). I created a little buzz (2 subscribers already – really?) so I might as well get started.
When in Doubt, Just Start Something (Small)
Bloggers do this, and they’re jumping the gun on mainstream media with the tactic of printing the blog post first to break the story and then updating it as the facts come in. While some bloggers do publish erroneous information with this strategy, or are accused of rumor -mongering, you can take this approach and apply it to things like blog posts, emails, and business plans. Not sure where to begin? Just do something small. Not sure how to write a love letter, try just sending “I’m thinking of you”. It’s more important that it exists, than that it’s perfect… we can work on perfect later, but you can’t iterate until the first move is made. So get that first piece of something out there, and keep it really small.
Starting is therapeutic, this blog post is an example.
No One Cares About Your “Stealth” Stuff (Except Your Ego)
You would be LUCKY if someone actually cared enough about what your startup is doing for it to be stealth. I’m not the first person to say this, and I won’t be the last. Check out UntitledStartup.com for a great example of an anti-stealth startup.
Many perfectionists are paralized because they think what they’re doing has to be the be all and end all of projects. Starting small is a good strategy. I find getting started is the most difficult, so if those first steps are for a small project, it is less daunting. You can always go back later and turn it into something bigger.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Danielle Morrill, Kintan Brahmbhatt and Kintan Brahmbhatt, Constaint Marketing. Constaint Marketing said: First blog post is live! "Just Do… Something (Small)" http://bit.ly/adZSaM [...]