Speed of Implementation --- How fast is "fast," anyway?

(Reading time: 5 – 8 minutes)

Speed of implementation is the notion that successful business people implement new ideas very quickly, immediately if possible.

But what does that mean?

Does it mean having an idea in the morning and making it work by close of business? (Does “close of business” even mean anything for an entrepreneur? I digress…)

Maybe.

It might also mean immediately starting a project that could last a week, a month, or a year. Perhaps even a lifetime for a lucky few people. But what if it doesn’t work out…?

The Upshot…

3 Keys to Speed of Implementation

Implementing very quickly is viable when:

The view from 50,000 feet is crystal clear; the entire structure was clear in a flash of inspiration.
You have the business and technical skills to start work immediately, and you are certain you know how to acquire what you lack.
You solve a worthwhile problem, for yourself or others, at all stages of implementation

You have something you want to accomplish. Start implementing now!

Don’t be afraid to fail

I have read that in many countries, failure is a Big Deal, which discourages high-risk activities like starting a business.

The quintessential beauty of the American spirit—perhaps culturally unique— is our addiction to stories of failure and redemption. Americans love a success… but we love a success who has repeatedly, even publicly failed, even more.

The truth is really even more mundane than this though. In today’s highly connected world, where information by the daily petabyte (big number, that petabyte) overloads our senses, your personal failure as a small business entrepreneur is almost meaningless in the larger scheme of things.*

Doesn’t that just sting a little?

It’s true.

Failure is emotionally painful. But nobody really cares.

Because the stakes for failing are simply loss of money and time rather than a brutal, irreversible shift in social standing, failing faster allows us to quickly find out what does work.

Failing faster means succeeding faster

When you “fail faster,” you drop non-productive projects that don’t make money in favor of trying something different.

The key is having a goal for each idea, and knowing when failure is imminent. Don’t become too emotionally attached to any single idea. This is a huge problem with new entrepreneurs! Some ideas just aren’t very good, no matter how much you’re in love with them!

Here’s how Speed of Implementation is working for me, in real life.

WIAW and Stirfry Startups

WIAW—Website-In-A-Weekend—was an idea that came to me in a flash while sitting on a couch at our second “Stirfry Startup,” where some friends of mine and I had gathered for a weekend to work on our personal websites. (Lots of cooking is involved as well, as you can see from the videos.)

Building web sites is something we all had to do anyway. We chose WordPress as a common platform to promote leverage, allowing us to share our knowledge immediately. More on leverage later.

The Website-In-A-Weekend idea is similar to Stirfry: get a bunch of people together in a room, lock the doors for a couple of days, everyone leaves with a working web site. But WIAW might have legs: people might pay real money for an in person Website-In-A-Weekend experience. Especially people that have a tendency to procrastinate… and just that extra help to focus on getting that “website thing” handled.

I immediately registered the domain website-in-a-weekend.net (the .com was taken and parked), as well as a couple of others that came to mind (more synergy). Since my hosting company (Affiliate::Bluehost) allows free “addon domains,” I had my new Website-In-A-Weekend website installed and operating within 10 minutes (actually faster than that… more like 3-4 minutes… I can do this unbelievably fast). Since I already have an AWeber account, I set up an autoresponder in another 10 minutes. Later, I spent a couple of hours learning how to set up bbPress, whence http://forum.website-in-a-weekend.net/.

Here’s where Website-In-A-Weekend stands right now (3/11/2009):

The current blog theme needs to be completely replaced.
Much more content needs to be written
All of the content needs to be restructured to add “knowlege value” to the information.
Forum needs to be rethemed.
Seminar structure and venue details need to be worked out. (Not my strong point, and this will be a large learning experience.)

And here is the most important point: building websites is something I have to do anyway! Website-In-A-Weekend allows me to leverage both my existing knowledge, and knowledge I will be learning anyway.

In contrast, our vision for Stirfry Startups isn’t nearly as clear. We all feel there is a germ of at least one really good idea, but there is no crystal-clear view from 50,000 feet. But we have made an informal commitment to continue the Stirfry project through 2009. If nothing else, just jamming people together for 48 hours to work on small business projects is an interesting experiment.

Fast is what fast does

So, how fast is “fast,” anyway?

As you can see, it’s relative.

Website-In-A-Weekend went live in 10 minutes… but it won’t formally launch for at least another month!

After I launch it, I’ll still have a vast amount of work to do.

Whoa!

I just had another great idea… which I am absolutely NOT going to share with you… yet!

In the meantime, please share your Speed of Implementation stories.

*I’m not talking to you Masters of the Universe. You have a large responsibility for taking care of our money, and you should be drummed out of all forms of banking (at a minimum) for making large money mistakes. Especially with my money.