My biggest failure in 2019 was getting utterly trapped in analysis paralysis.
Throughout the year, I explored many different side project ideas but I rarely took any action on most of them.
I didn't ask people for feedback on the ideas. I didn't cold email potential customers to see what they thought. I didn't build much.
Instead, I got stuck in a "research" mindset and consumed endless information on new industries or business models, often eventually talking myself out of most of my ideas -- without having any direct data on whether or not something would have worked out.
I think a more productive approach to 2020 will be defining specific actions or experiments I can run on new ideas, rather than remaining purely in the theoretical realm.
It's moderately depressing to look back at how little I really learned. Few of my theories ever made contact with reality.
Been there. I realized doing something was better than planning most of the time in the initial stage.
Most ideas or things you will come across have already been done, so trying to find something original isn't a solid strategy. If it's entirely new/original, then it will come to you naturally. You will discover it because you are the consumer facing the problem.
Otherwise, focusing on getting feedback and people to talk to you, get them to send their email (even though I personally hate the practice of collecting private info without any product and sending 'spam') is important to maintain their investment along with a simple sketchy prototype to show off. It's easier to give feedback on something that you can see or interact with than written details. Showing vision is better than explaining it even if it is completely basic. Your users will flesh out the product for you, they will tell you what features you can add, how it should work and how you can actually do it.
All of that wouldn't happen without a basic structure. Without seeing a shitty painting, I wouldn't comment on it.
I wonder how depressed marketers and other similar people feel for manipulating others and hogging their personal life with irrelevant things.....such as getting someone's dad addicted to a gambling or social platform and that resulting in negligence.
Throughout the year, I explored many different side project ideas but I rarely took any action on most of them.
I didn't ask people for feedback on the ideas. I didn't cold email potential customers to see what they thought. I didn't build much.
Instead, I got stuck in a "research" mindset and consumed endless information on new industries or business models, often eventually talking myself out of most of my ideas -- without having any direct data on whether or not something would have worked out.
I think a more productive approach to 2020 will be defining specific actions or experiments I can run on new ideas, rather than remaining purely in the theoretical realm.
It's moderately depressing to look back at how little I really learned. Few of my theories ever made contact with reality.