Just Ship It
All Things Venture #035
Hey Everyone, Dez here from All Things Venture. I had an interview tee’d up and ready to go for another Startup Spotlight this week, but unfortunately had to reschedule. I’ve been putting out this newsletter every week now since late August and I had to keep the streak alive, so I’ll just be sharing a brief reflection on what I’ve learned over the past few weeks instead. We’ve got some awesome articles coming down the pike on the Startup Spotlight and IPO Radar fronts so I’m excited to share those with you all as well. Anyways, let’s get to it.
Something happened to me today that was pretty cool. I put myself out there. On my way to work today, I tweeted this:
I didn’t think about the tweet, I didn’t think about how it would be received, I didn’t think about who would like it, who would reply, or who would roll their eyes, I just put myself out there and let it happen. Did I go viral? No, but I had a good amount of friends tweet back in support of what I said. I had really brief, positive dialogue on the topic of being different that validated my own personal experiences and that of my friends. These minor interactions set the tone for the rest of my day, and let me tell you - I had a damn good day. I’m not a shy person by any means, but I do struggle with being myself, and being true to myself in all moments. The reason why I thought today was so cool was because I allowed myself, to express a totally innocuous, benign part of me that was raw and unfiltered, but wholly me. I had a thought, I tweeted my thought, and the positive reinforcement came pouring in. I share all of this to come back to one of the main things I’ve learned over the past few weeks, and honestly year in general - the person most critical of your work in the earliest days, is going to be you, and that if you want to receive, you have to give. If you have an idea, and are working on a product, or thinking of creating content, or wanting to switch jobs, the absolute best thing you can do for yourself is to just start. Just ship it. Give people something tangible to react to and decide for themselves whether they like it or not. Have an idea for the next big thing in Web 3? Great, hack together a Typeform survey, fire up a Discord, make a landing page on Unbounce and ship. Thinking about starting a podcast? Record your first one, better yet record the next five, pay a freelancer to edit them, and ship. Looking to get into venture capital? Start researching funds with a focus area that overlaps with your personal and professional interests, draft some intro emails with your deal flow, and ship, ship, ship.
We live in a world where, whether we like it or not, we spend ~50% of our waking hours in front of a computer/on the internet, trying to work in an efficient enough manner, for a long enough period of time, so we can eventually retire and choose to do whatever we want with that time. It is so easy to forget, especially for all my millennials and Gen Zs out there, that the technological innovations of the computer and the internet were absolute game changers in terms of how society lives, works, and plays. Twenty years ago, there was no such thing as “swiping right”, today it’s more common for a couple to have met on Hinge than in person. With all that truly transformative possibility standing on the opposite side of you and few keystrokes, brushstrokes, clicks, whatever - why would you not go for it? Why would you not ship that idea you’ve been working on as your 5 - 9? Why would you not put yourself out there and see what happens? You never know how your little idea could change the world, and you never know how your little idea could help someone have a damn good day.
That’s it for this week everyone, as always drop me a note at dez@firstmarkcap.com, and let me know what you think in the comments!
Love it, and 100% agree. I think my most used Slack emoji is :shipit:... I always find myself in the trap of "wait until it's perfect" and have to convince myself to put myself out there and trust that I'll get closer with iteration.