Often I’m asked about people’s ideas, and this is what I usually say:
Don’t ask, just start.
Do it often, make your mistakes, and keep learning. You need to be child-like in your zeal for the idea that you have.
Make 10 instances of your “thing,” then get some feedback. Send it to people who might enjoy it, and see if they share it. If they don’t, DON’T ASK THEM WHY. Make another thing. And then another. Make them until they’re so good your friends are finally asking, “WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE?!”
But don’t seek approval before you even start. Just start it. Make it, stay busy with it, and refine it. Solicit opinions from people you trust, but don’t spend a lot of time monitoring comments sections or writing emails or having mega long conversations. That’s time you could be spending working on your thing.
Remember, you’re just starting something. You need a thing before you can really have conversations about your project!
So get busy working on your thing.
Wait, how?
Guess what – that’s for you to decide! Do you buy a domain name, then secure the 14 social media networks with that name first? Publish weekly? Release something every month? That’s up to you!
Make 10 of your things. From there you’ll be nailing down your process. The busy work, the technical parts, the images that you’ll use, tone, maybe working with other people – there are so many moving parts! Figure all of that out behind the scenes, quietly, before you’re bumbling and stumbling around in front of 1,000 people a day. Oops.
But work on it everyday, and get something out there as often as you can. It’ll force you to trim the fat from your process, and you’ll learn that quicker by a putting out a lot of stuff, rather than sitting on something until it’s “perfect.” You don’t want your production to be so arduous that it takes you weeks or months or years. That much time between releases, at least to start, and you’ll miss out on learning valuable lessons.
At this stage in the game you need those lessons. Those lessons add up. And while this thing you’re working on now might not work out, you’ve learned a bunch, so it was never a waste of time. Just take those lessons now and apply them to your next idea. Go!
This piece originally posted on Patreon on April 3, 2016.