Screw It, Let’s Do It

It may be the title of a ‘Lessons in Life’ book by the evergreen Richard Branson but it also sums up one of the personality traits that set entreprenuers apart from everyone else.

You may have been brought up to believe patience is a virtue but when it comes to entreprenuers, impatience is the name of the game.

Whether it’s doing some market research, looking at structures and processes, attending meetings or, heaven forbid, writing up a business plan. This is uncomfortable territory for the entreprenuer.

Planning and analysing are alien concepts to the entreprenuer – to be avoided wherever possible.

Entreprenuers, do two things – dream up ideas and put them into action. As soon as possible. Having come up with the next ‘big idea’ they want to test it in the marketplace today not tomorrow or next week. And with as little planning and preparation as possible.

And I know the feeling.

The social community website that I am pinning my hopes on is going back and forth to the developer. Partly because it is being developed on the fly. As each stage is completed, I change my mind about what will or won’t work and realise what else should be included in version one. But also when working with someone who’s instinct is the techie bit it’s only later that I realise what I see as obvious, he doesn’t.

The net effect though is frustration probably for him as much as me. He just wants to get the job done, I want to go live.

To start this business for real. In the martketplace, talking to people about it, checking how many sign-ups today, adding new features, making improvements and best of all, hear people talking about it. All this can only be done when V1 is ready.

But how ready is ready?

One thing that set Jeoff and me apart was his desire to plan and plan with a bit more planning thrown in. The planner believes it is possible to get things 100% right before going live. In my experience though, you can only do so much planning before you need feedback from the only people who really count – the (potential) customers.

And the sooner you get this the better. Get the product right to a certain point, then launch, get the feedback and incorporate it as quickly as possible. The product will never be 100% right but you can get to 90-95% pretty quickly.

Unless the product is very technical and/or has health and safety implications, the entrepreneur wants that launch date as soon as possible. He wants the product selling as quickly as possible, money in the bank.

The entreprenuer’s motto – Screw It, Let’s Do It!