Shutup Brain. Stop Thinking About Cool Shit.
Shut. Up. Brain.
During the past 16 episodes of co-hosting Techzing & interviewing people like Peldi from Balsamiq and Jason Cohen from Smart Bear I’ve learnt that being a successful entrepreneur is about looking at the BIG picture. Covering ALL the business bases. NOT being tunnel visioned. But as usual I’m only focused on one thing…
Cool shit.
When will I ever learn that I can’t build a real business just by focusing on the tech.?
That’s why I need to slap myself in the face and start to think about the big picture. Even though my brain is unendingly and compulsively spinning with things things like…
- Is jQuery’s $().keydown routine hogging too much processor time? I need to profile it.
- Why does the content window look funny “for a split second” when Tweets are loaded?
- What’s the most optimal schema to create a Twitter groups system
The thing is. I’ve already developed the working software that fulfills the value proposition. So why the heck am I focusing on the tech. minutiae details? Why do I continue to add features? Why don’t I start doing the things that REALLY matter to build a REAL business? Things like…
- Oh, um, marketing “the thing that brings eyeballs’ to the product”
- And, um, sales journeys “the thing that converts people into paying customers”
- Erm, integrating Paypal “the thing that brings me money”
I’ll tell you why. Because that’s boring. BORING. All the fun is in the cool shit. All that other stuff is a pain in the ass.
But somewhere along the line I have to change my pattern. I. Have. To. Grow. Up. Must. Pull. Brain. Away. From. Cool. Shit.
So, there you go. This post is a triumph! I’ve started marketing TweetMiner.
Now I just have to go build the boring ass sales journeys.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz……
p.s http://TweetMiner.net is a web based RSS reader fully integrated with Twitter. It makes it easy to follow your RSS feeds and click a button to Tweet stories (and schedule those Tweets)
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Hi Justin,
congrats to your new blog and (obviously even more important) to starting with some marketing activities.
Maybe you should look for a partner who thinks that marketing/PR is the “coolest shit” ever. So you can keep on concentrating on booooooring things like jQuery’s $().keydown routines and process times, while your partner brings eyebolls to your product.
This way you both could focus on would you can do best!
LOL like looking in the mirror. Now close your eyes and say the magic bizz mantra 100 times:
“Goals, lists, priorities, cool shit, customers”
I would have to agree with Suzana there. If you think of the other disciplines of a business as boring, then you should find someone to do it for you or with you. Without passion or at least some interest, you won’t do half as good a job as someone who’s passionate about marketing, managing a dev team, cold calling to generate some sales, etc.
There simply isn’t time in life for tasks you find boring, just do what you like and aim at doing it for as long as you’d like. Maybe managing the technology part or being in charge of research and development in a web-focused company would be nice and still enable you to use your entrepreneurial skills.
Just my 2 cents, I sometimes have the same feeling you describe in this post. Mostly, I prefer to prototype interface and apps in Ruby, but I’m not exactly the best guy to test my code, refactor, etc. I’m still looking for the perfect position to enable me to do basically only do R&D and leave the polishing to others who like that better.
Step 1 – Collect cool shit.
Step 2 – ???
Step 3 – PROFIT!
I’m with you. I hate step 2.
@Jeromegn – But in a one man company you sometimes you HAVE to do those things…
I too am a “Cool Shit” addict (when it comes to technology and gadgetry anyway). One good side effect of being a “Cool Shit” addict is that it keeps our eyes open for the next “big thing” and keeps us focused on which areas we need to keep our skills sharp. Granted a balance must be struck between learning about new “Cool Shit” and actually building our own “Cool Shit.”
errrr, no, you need a business partner who likes thinking about that suff.
@simon wentley – It’s a side project, something small, I don’t want to get business partners involved in this.
was going to try it but was annoyed by the split second funny looking window
Hi Justin and congrats for the new blog!
Regards,
Miguel.
@albemuth – LOL!
groups in twitter would be awful.
I was thinking the other day that you’ve done a great job hiring if most everyone in a company thinks that everyone else’s job in the company is boring and that theirs isn’t.
@Chris Eppstein – That is a very good way of looking at it
Great response to this article:
http://robotr.tumblr.com/post/192059426/dont-shutup-your-brain
It’d be cool to see rememberthemilk.com integrated to tweetminer somehow.. I don’t know if that’s in-line with tweetminer’s purpose, but RSS + Twitter + todo list sounds like a winning website for me
As a programmer I will tell you that you don’t need to cultivate only one small part of you as a person, I’m going to be brutally honest with you, so you can stop reading here if you want.
If you think is boring, it’s boring. But that has not to be that way, you need to find someone who things that as exciting. You have a prejudice and we humans stand for our believes more than anything else( e.g if you think animals are stupid you will find proofs of that, the same way you will if you think they are smart)
You need to change your believes, reprogram your mind. Your thoughts are destroying you, and your company.
But I have a one man company! Sorry but I find that as a lame excuse, you can read books,I prefer videos, but I highly recommend contacting people that is good at this areas and learn from them.
Best marketing people in the world are not people that care about “bringing eyeballs”, they are people that CARE about the customers, and solve their necessities. They don’t try to sell a product, they learn what people need first and make a product for them later. Notice order here. Product sell itself if solves people necessities. CARING ABOUT PEOPLE IS A PLEASURE.
Making it easy for people to pay you for your work is a pleasure too, I can’t think of that as boring.
sounds like you need to hook up with a less tech-nerd kinda person. You’re Woz. You need a Steve.