
Start Something Small - dohertyjf
http://joel.is/post/34817862059/start-something-small
======
ChuckMcM
This is excellent advice. One of the challenges is that really big things can
become overwhelming and intimidating, but small things are quite doable. When
I was writing a column for JavaWorld I remember how 'hard' it was to write a
1500 - 2000 word column, but 'easy' to write a 2000 word email. Michael
O'Connell, my editor there, suggested that I just write an email and let the
editors make it into the column. I decided that was stepping too far back, but
I could effectively break my writer's block by emailing myself the question I
wanted to answer and then approaching the first draft as an email.

I would expect that much the same happens between 'startups' and 'weekend
projects.' If you build a small project for the weekend you don't really care
that you will be done on Sunday (or Monday perhaps :-) and that will be that.
A 'startup' on the other hand that is the first step and then you have to
drive traffic, and get buzz, raise funding etc etc. So it stops being a
'weekend project' and becomes the start of huge pile of work. Yuck!

~~~
rcarrigan87
This is so true. Just last week I was struggling with writing a press release
and couldn't get started. While staring at my screen an email came through
from an old friend asking what the scoop was on my new project. I immediately
dove into the email and began writing what would later become our press
release. At the time though I was just responding to a friend. Funny how that
works.

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moistgorilla
This is a solution to a problem I have. I am a procrastinator. No matter how
much I "want" to do something I always rationalize why it could be better left
till later. The way I combat this is by making the tasks I need to complete in
a day small and easy so that doing them becomes insignificant. I normally have
nothing against the actual tasks I need to complete. In fact I usually enjoy
them. But the idea of tackling a giant problem gives me anxiety. If I start
with only working for 5 to 10 minutes in mind it will usually extend to hours.
If you are a procrastinator I suggest you try this strategy.

~~~
fatbird
This is exactly how I overcame a tendency to procrastinate: decompose tasks to
trivially small bits that are easily taken care of right now, at this moment.
That gets you started, and that's really all you need.

~~~
TillE
That's the essence of GTD. For everything you have to do, you write down the
precise "next action" that needs to be accomplished to move towards that goal.
If you stick to it, it's very effective.

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OoTheNigerian
Though I am the greatest breaker of this rule, I agree so much with it.

Anytime I see a "Facebook killer" that has all the current features of
Facebook I smile and tell the builder(if he/she is a friend) to observe that
the sites after FB that ever got so big (Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare) had
only one real feature before building out over time.

I am sure even Pinterest will become more complex, but for now, it is all
about Pinning.

Nice article Joel, this point cannot be emphasized enough.

~~~
maximz
Absolutely. It's impossible to gain traction unless you simply your product
and start with one feature. The problem that then arises is how to choose the
"killer app" out of your entire model, something that is groundbreaking,
evaluates the market opportunity, and leaves you with a cliffhanger to prepare
for the next step in increasing complexity.

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mitchellwfox
Nice article. I like how you pulled in some examples of major brands that
started small, like Virgin.

As an entrepreneur, you're unfortunately constantly confronted by the push-
and-pull of needing to think big, and then to build small. Investors (seem to)
want to hear about big markets and big ideas, and at the same time want to see
real product and traction - things that are hard to achieve unless you start
small. Thanks for sharing.

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GBKS
The kids character, Thomas the tank engine, is a great example of this. It all
started in 1942, with a dad telling his sick kid stories to cheer him up. The
kid liked it so much, that his Dad turned it into short stories, and then
books. Today there are 42 books, with the last one released in 2011, a TV show
that has been running for 27 years, and kids all over the world know and love
Thomas. And the little kid, now 72, is still involved in the franchise.

Full story on Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Tank_Engine>

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henrik_w
There is a quote from John Gall that I really like:

“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple
system that worked.”

I mostly think of it in terms of software development, but I guess it applies
more broadly than that.

Also, +1 for How to Win Friends and Influence People - one of the best books
ever.

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dude_abides
Just "starting small" is also dangerous.

The right balance is "envision big, start small".

~~~
codegeek
I am sure "Envision Big" is implicit at least in this specific blog post.

~~~
chj
+1. I guess the blog is more about: you have a great ambition, but try solve a
small problem first and see if people are interested. Then grow it.

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d0m
I can't stress that enough. I've been in the startup world for a couple years
now, had my own success and failures, and saw lots of success and failures
from others.. starting small and focusing on making it great is such a good
advice.

If someone asked how he'd learn to code, the answer would probably turn around
a small tutorial or a trivial program to write, not a WoW clone to start with.
Oddly enough, first-time entrepreneurs often try to start with the Facebook or
Instagram killer needing a massive growth and a huge funding.

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vitalique
It seems from the comments that some people tend to understand this advice as
praising of the reductionist approach to problem solving, which is only one of
the many methods of 'building' or 'engineering'. But I think the article talks
about how intentional staying away from 'thinking big' doesn't prevent your
product from becoming big - eventually, which is a different thing. Article
doesn't try to explain why that is the case, actually, and reads more like a
statement of an important fact with some prominent examples. And we know that
there are examples to everything.

Also, it is easy to mistake 'starting small and growing big overtime' for
'starting small and staying small, but having a great impact on whatever side
of life/business we choose' - kind of what folks from 37signals do (an
example, yes).

That said, I think this is a very good advise: applied right and regularly, it
helps you escape the procrastination period (uncertainty of 'big' may be too
strong to overcome), skip needless research and preparations, avoid paralysis
by analysis and other friends of 'thinking big'. The next logical step is
reducing 'start something small' to just 'start something'.

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fijal
This is all on the topic of gradual improvement vs doing a leap forward. Most
of the things can be gradually improved from something small. Take as an
example an issue tracker. You can start as small as you like (a file with a
list of issues to deal with) and go towards a reasonable solution.

The problem is not every single problem in the world can be broken down into
such pieces. Take for example a fashionable electric car from Tesla. There is
no reasonable way how you can start an electric car from a gasoline car (put
an extra electrict motor? you end up with hybrid. take away the gasoline
motor? you end up with a horse cart) and tesla did not even have a gasoline
car to start with.

There are both kinds of problem and I agree most startups, especially in the
social world can be implemented in gradual steps that make sense. The problem
with other problems is that first you have to understand the problem area
really well. A very good start is to try the gradual way and __fail __at it,
later to start a leapfrog approach, knowing the problem area.

My 2 cents.

~~~
confluence
You're wrong.

The Tesla Roadster was a modified Lotus Elise with off the shelf components
combined with an off the shelf electric engine and a container of common
laptop batteries all coordinated with on board software. They used this base
to design the Model S. Giant leaps or explosive growth are only called as such
by naive people who weren't watching the thing being painstakingly set up over
many years. Everything is a slow burn - there are no explosions - only
ignorance and inattention.

Furthermore the design occurred mostly in simulations in a gradual,
agglomerative, iterative fashion just like most software. It's why they can
bring out cars so quickly nowadays.

Your argument is the same as the creationists. Everything is iterative
evolution. There are no leaps of faith, miracles or gods - just directed
random evolution.

~~~
fijal
"The Tesla Roadster was a modified Lotus Elise with off the shelf components
combined with an off the shelf electric engine and a container of common
laptop batteries all coordinated with on board software"

You call it evolutionary I call it a leap, IMO it still took quite a bit of
effort. The point is nothing in between was working good enough to show as the
famous MVP.

Giant leaps are also sometimes called by people who did the leap itself, even
if it did not look a leap from the outside.

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arbuge
I remember there was an article a while back* about a valley vc lamenting that
most founders these days are only interested in doing little "dipshit
companies".

This article is a good counterpoint.

*[http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/15/venture-capital-super-angel...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/15/venture-capital-super-angel-war-entrepreneur/)

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thenomad
This is very, very good advice. Many of my most successful projects also
started small-ish - including my first feature film, my 500k visitors/month
website and my current project starring some Pretty Famous Actors.

Having said that, in the case of film I tend to have more of a problem keeping
the damn project small long enough to release something - hence why my average
time-between-releases is about 3 years. This seems to be something of an
endemic problem in the pretty-pictures-moving-on-a-screen industry, as James
Cameron and Joss Whedon, for example, demonstrate.

I wonder - does anyone have any good ideas for how to create an MVF (Minimum
Viable Film)? Would be interested to have a discussion on this.

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donebizkit
This is closely related to another story that's on the front page right now
called "Nobody’s going to steal your idea"
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4732684> All my previous projects were
big and they all failed. The reason I started them big and loaded with
functionality is that I was afraid that if I start small someone else would
steal the idea and leverage their network to get traction faster than me. That
was a big time consuming mistake.

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codegeek
This is a subject that I am constantly challenged with while working on my
ideas/projects etc. Every time I think I have the next facebook killer idea, I
tell myself to go back to the drawing board because I am thinking way too much
ahead and not _starting small_.

This topic is never going to be too cliched or repetitive. Very hard to get it
right.

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kiba
To help with me with starting small, I also have started a small habit and not
to add new one until a few weeks later. Now I have habits in walking 10K steps
a day, writing 500 words a day, as well habits that help me measure my well
being in various ways such as BP, weight, pulse rate, blood sugar level, and
so on.

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ZanderEarth32
Great insight. My "first project" was something way too big for a first
attempt and crashed and burned before it even "launched". It was such a bad
experience that I didn't really try anything for 3 or 4 years. Then I decided
to try a couple of really small projects and it's been a much more manageable
experience.

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sh_vipin
Interesting post. Also would like to add a quote.........

"Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that
you do it." --Mahatma Gandhi

I was so impressed with it that I added it in 1 of the 4 top picked quotes on
Slider at homepage of <http://syncfin.com>

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vilius
When you start doing something small, your minimum viable product is your most
valuable product. It is all you have. If you don't make your MVP, you are
missing something of a highest value.

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6ren
Great advice, with many application, e.g.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%27s_law>

    
    
      A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system
      that worked. 
    

I'm not sure if it _always_ works for a MVP; I think some technical/scientific
ideas (as opposed to _market opportunity_ ideas) need quite a bit of work
before a user/customer can appreciate them. That is, ideas that are
cool/intriguing, but don't meet a need. Uh, I guess you could argue that a MVP
at this stage is seeking collaborators (not users). e.g. Codd's first
relational paper - peers were fascinated, but a deliverable took 10 more
years.

But the relational concept itself was fully formed, and without that, he
wouldn't have intrigued people. One could argue that this is to do with the
"Minimum" threshold in "MVP". I'm just saying that an arbitrarily small MVP
won't always work - there is a "minimum".

esr in CatB suggested similar to MVP for open source - but again, I think this
also needs to connect with a need, or something the audience appreciates i.e.
"something really neat". Historically, it seems hard for open source to start
revolutionary new projects (revolutionary academic projects are often open
source, but remain academic). It's also hard for big business - it often seems
to take a startup to do it. Here's what esr said:
[http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-
baza...](http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/homesteading/cathedral-
bazaar/ar01s10.html) (3rd paragraph):

    
    
      Your program doesn't have to work particularly well. It can be crude, buggy,
      incomplete, and poorly documented. What it must not fail to do is (a) run, and
      (b) convince potential co-developers that it can be evolved into something really
      neat in the foreseeable future.
    

Steve Jobs talked about people not knowing that they want something until you
show it to them - so it has to be complete enough for them to recognize it.
And "The Innovator's Dilemma" mentions many cases where the revolutionary new
thing _wasn't wanted_ by mainstream customers... however, to be fair, it _did_
find a market with other customers - it started small, in a small, niche
market.

BTW <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie>

    
    
      Perhaps one of Carnegie’s most successful marketing moves was to change the spelling
      of his last name from “Carnagey” to Carnegie, at a time when Andrew Carnegie
      (unrelated) was a widely revered and recognized name.

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sunils34
This follows the very meaning of engineering. Break down a complex problem
into smaller, solvable chunks. When you solve that, move to the next level.

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kaipakartik
This mostly always works

