
Rands: Hurry - naish
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2009/10/02/hurry.html
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bsaunder
And when you find competitors, you need to realize that probably _no one else
you know_ has heard of them. The people here have rather bleeding edge
knowledge of start-ups. There may be 10 start-ups for your idea. Some of them
are probably running on vapors at this point.

~~~
billswift
If nothing else, finding other people working on the same idea is a validation
of the idea, since they think it is worth working on too. If you think you can
do a better job at it than they can why not try it yourself?

~~~
thetrumanshow
In fact, if you find competitors in your market and they are using a free
model to gain traction, don't be shy about taking them on with a paid model.

If customers find you first and you can close the deal, those other free
competitors won't pose a threat. The caveat here is that you must keep your
customers happy. However, if true customer satisfaction is just not quite
attainable and you're in survival mode (due to being under resourced or what
have you), simply keep the the level of pain that you create for them below
the threshold of pain required to switch from your service to your
competitors.

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wallflower
> rather than just soaking in that brief moment of illumination, I want you to
> do something about it because…

Well-stated.

My favorite example of inspiration meeting implementation is Dave Troy who
wrote the initial Ruby on Rails code for TwitterVision in a few hours. I love
the melding of art and technology. TwitterVision was featured recently in a
MoMa exhibit.

"Steve: How did you get the idea for TwitterVision?

Dave: I literally wanted to know who in my area was using Twitter. They had an
API that had location information, and I had recently completed some other
work with Google maps, so within a few hours I had a working mashup that would
show me the Twitter activity nearby. I then had the idea that it would be cool
to animate the map, and set out to do it. Within a few short days,
Twittervision was born."

[http://blog.networksolutions.com/2008/secrets-of-serial-
entr...](http://blog.networksolutions.com/2008/secrets-of-serial-
entrepreneurship-an-interview-with-david-troy-of-twittervisioncom-and-
openlocationorg/)

"It's not important to get it right but to get it _going_." -Mike Litman

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toadpipe
This is like the adult version of everything the culture tells you where
you're a kid: "you're special! you're a unique snowflake! you can do anything,
if you just believe in it! follow your dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeams!" The adult
version is more succinct, ever so slightly more specific, and doesn't have all
the pretty pictures, but it's the same thing.

Well, I grew up in the culture too, and I guess I drank the Kook-Aid. If it
strikes any chord in you at all, you should probably go for it. If you want my
advice, don't do what everyone else is doing. Not everything has to be a
social networking webapp. Get off the net and read a book once in a while. Be
in a hurry, but be smart and thoughtful about it too. Always Be Creating, but
make it something you'll learn a lot from, even if it fails.

But why care about my advice? There are so many other people who will tell you
what to do.

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jwesley
Similar to what Mark Cuban has said about business (paraphrasing) that it's
non-stop competition. 24 hours a day there is somebody out there trying to
kick your ass.

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dan_sim
What I'll remember from this post : it's not that because something already
exists that you can't do it better. I once talked to one of my friend who had
a great idea but didn't even bother working on it. He just said "probably
someone else is doing it" without even looking if it has been done or how. He
keeps talking about leaving his job... since 2 years.

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revorad
Hell yeah, what an awesome kicker to start my day with. And couldn't be better
timing with the weekend starting in a few hours...

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edw519
Deciding to get off your butt is the hard part...until you do. Then it's the
easy part. Anyone can decide.

Now getting something done - that's really the hard part. OP is right on: pick
something small and get started. You don't have to quit your job.

And here's the tricky part: You have to get something done every day.
Something, anything. It doesn't have to be big, it just has to be something.
Get one little thing working each night after work and save the bigger stuff
for the weekends.

When you cross something off you list every day, it feels empowering. And you
see real progress.

OTOH, if you don't do this, before you know it 2 weeks will have gone by with
nothing changed and a million good excuses. They one day you'll wonder, "What
ever happened to that great idea I had on the way to work?"

~~~
Periodic
I like this. Too many times I find that if I put off a project once it starts
to get pushed off indefinitely until I sort of give up on it.

Persistence will get you further than intelligence or luck.

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bonsaitree
Nothing original, but an extremely well-structured narrative approach to the
traditional "call to action" essay.

