I continue to chew through a lot of time making sure that PeakZebra, as a service, works. That it does what it’s supposed to do.
But I’ve come to realize that one of my major challenges as a founder is training myself not to keep moving the “finished and ready for launch” goalposts. In particular, I have had a tendency to stop at key points, re-envision what it is I’m building, and wind up with a lot more pre-launch work.
Or more simply: whenever I get close to the start line, I find an excuse to push it further away. A mindset problem.
Stopping starting
Thing is, now pretty much all of the necessary code pieces exist and it’s time to just get going with the “having customers” part of the arrangement.
So I’m drawing up a list of every single thing that absolutely must be done prior to launch. I expect this will be subject to a change or two, but I think I’m close enough that I have a far clearer view than I would have been capable of having early on and can make a list that will remain more or less accurate until launch.
I don’t think there’s any sense in sharing the list (and, as I write this, the list doesn’t exactly exist yet–I guess you could say I have a concept of some lists), but I hope to make it in a way that makes reasonable time corrections possible.
By the way, if you’re thinking: “Hey, isn’t this what project management is? How have you managed a big project without some version of this list all along?” Well, fair question, but there have been lists. The problem was that I kept revising the product vision out from under them.
Plowing mode
Also: you’d be surprised how easy it is to keep plowing along, once you’re in plowing mode, without considering whether the thing you’re working on actually needs to be done before launch (or at all). “Plowing mode” is critical but also dangerous.
One additional, related thing I’ve committed to is that I won’t re-write the code base out from under the product once it launches. Revisions of all sorts will of course happen, but no significant do-overs allowed, at least not until the business is up on its feet and humming.
One open question is the one I mentioned a few days ago: to what degree is what I’m doing going to be like a very specialized agency? This is one that I think the market has to decide, but I need to make the case in a convincing way so that it’s a fair test. And so I guess that had better be on the list as well.
Lots of things on the list, but not too many to prevent imagining we’ll be running full speed at the top of the new year.