

Maintaining a Sense of Urgency - ecommercematt
http://blog.jabbik.com/2008/04/sense-of-urgency.html

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staunch
In my experience most of us only maintain a sense of urgency over time out of
fear. That's certainly the basis of most of this advice. I've always been
somewhat conflicted about using fear to motivate myself and others. I feel
almost guilty that it's the best tool I've found. I feel much better about the
work I do out of pure excitement, but most of the time after the initial
excitement wears off, I find it's fear of failing that keeps me going strong.

~~~
boris
And that's why your startup needs an enemy. Otherwise you will have to be the
one everyone is fearful of.

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aschobel
6) Leave your job and move to San Francisco to work on your startup full time.

Like he said, don't treat it like a hobby. I've found that moving has really
focused my mind and put my efforts in another orbit.

~~~
ndespres
This has been true for me as well. Moving was completely necessary for me to
really get things rolling with Jabbik.

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sanj
Urgency is the key to driving business deals. If there's isn't any, everyone
adopts a "wait and see" stance.

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jfalk
Excellent read. There is a lot of great advice in this post, especially the
note about urgency at the end.

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jsackmann
Huh. A coincidence that this showed up today, right after I posted this:

[http://www.gmathacks.com/gmat-verbal-bible/coming-soon-
the-g...](http://www.gmathacks.com/gmat-verbal-bible/coming-soon-the-gmat-
verbal-bible.html)

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edw519
Great advice. I especially like:

2) Spend A Lot More Time Building Something Than You Spend Thinking About,
Reflecting On, And Analyzing Your Ideas.

It's so much easier to think about something than to do it.

~~~
Tichy
In some situations that can mean that thinking about something is better than
doing it. Like if you can dismiss a plan by thinking about it, you have wasted
less energy than if you execute the plan and fail.

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edw519
Maybe. Maybe not. I know it seems counterintuitive, but sometimes it works out
better when you build something you never needed in the first place. At least
you have a "bird in the hand".

This advice struck me particularly hard because I have done both. I have laid
out the most fantastic apps with pencil and paper. OTOH, things never really
became crystal clear until I actually built it.

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willz
I disagree.

Startups succeed and fail for many reasons. For example, lot of startups fail
simply because the idea doesn't work, not execution. Read the "black swan"
book, the single most important reason for failure or success is actually
luck. Keep tinkering with things, and you may get lucky.

