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Here is my then & now.
2013: Attempting my first software startup, surrounding myself with motivational quotes. Very naive about business.
2020: I left my job to work full time on a fast-growing startup that I co-founded.
2013: Attempting my first software startup, surrounding myself with motivational quotes. Very naive about business.
2020: I left my job to work full time on a fast-growing startup that I co-founded.
In 2013, I was working on a fitness startup called Raw Gains. It was similar to MyFitnessPal but focused on specific dieting techniques (carb cycling, keto, etc.) and better workout routines.
It was targeted at individuals & personal trainers & I had no idea what I was doing
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It was targeted at individuals & personal trainers & I had no idea what I was doing
I left my agency job in 2013 and had around £2,000 saved. I was living at home and my monthly bills were less than £500. I was going to build Raw Gains in 5 months, launch, and have 1,000 customers.
None of that happened. I didn& #39;t even get one customer.
None of that happened. I didn& #39;t even get one customer.
Fast forward to 2014, I fell into contract work and ended up doing that for a few years. Whilst I was doing it, I was always building side projects on the weekend. Originally, I was only working 80 hours a month and spent the other 80 hours on a project I& #39;ve never spoken about.
That project was an Instagram growth application that automatically grew your Instagram account. It utilized the Instagram API, would follow people who followed influencers, and then un-follow them if they didn& #39;t follow you back. Sounds spammy? It was. But it worked well.
I worked on that but, like with my project in 2013, I would get hung up on details. And these "hang-ups" would lead to me procrastinating. The problem was caused by the fact that I didn& #39;t have a boss/client who was sanity checking me & holding me accountable. It never went live.
A while later, I learned about something called Analysis paralysis. When you get a name for something "wrong" in your life, it makes it much easier to fix, and I immediately started restructuring how I did things in life.
This is how I did things in 2013 when starting a project:
1) Spend weeks obsessing over features & details
2) Plan out *exactly* how I will build it
3) Aim to build every single feature for launch
4) Build 1/20th of it then feel overwhelmed
5) Never shipped
1) Spend weeks obsessing over features & details
2) Plan out *exactly* how I will build it
3) Aim to build every single feature for launch
4) Build 1/20th of it then feel overwhelmed
5) Never shipped
In 2013, I used to obsess about how I& #39;d build the application. When I was working with an application framework called Kohana (who remembers this framework?), I once put off building my project because I was convinced I had to learn about clean code, spec tests, etc.
This is me in 2019 when working on Pico, and then Fathom.
1) Write out feature ideals with my co-founder
2) Start building things immediately
3) Ship
4) Refactor later (doing this now)
And you get customers & feedback because it& #39;s live!
1) Write out feature ideals with my co-founder
2) Start building things immediately
3) Ship
4) Refactor later (doing this now)
And you get customers & feedback because it& #39;s live!
Successful people don& #39;t spend months "planning", they focus on getting things done.
If you& #39;re working on your own thing, guess what, you don& #39;t need a plan and you can pivot at any time because you don& #39;t have anyone to answer to. You answer to yourself.
If you& #39;re working on your own thing, guess what, you don& #39;t need a plan and you can pivot at any time because you don& #39;t have anyone to answer to. You answer to yourself.
