After the idea

Being fortunate enough to be able to watch one of my crazy ideas materialize, I feel that it is my responsibility to attempt to pass along some of the wisdom that I have gained over the process. I know you have all heard that all you have to do is "keep trying" and you will succeed; this is only partly true, and usually told by people who have no idea what you should do next. This is not a repeat of that advice.

Ideas are fairly easy to get, for most people they happen all the time. It is what to do next, the actual steps, that lead to the individual giving up. When starting on a new idea, failure is certain. I guarantee that some part of your plan or process is going to fail, and this is what a lot of people don't expect. They jump to the conclusion that if their plan failed, then their idea must be a failure; not true.

Quick example, when I started Summit Up, it was my plan to run an auction to decided whose flags I would carry. I planned to auction off 5 slots per month, and the winners would then send me a flag, and I would repeat the process until I had all the flags I could carry. Three months into this plan, I had zero sponsors. Not a single company had made a bid or even a counter offer. However, I still felt that I had a good idea, and began calling companies directly. This idea worked, and sponsors started to come in.

The last part of this example is key to getting an idea moving. Try all sorts of different tactics around one idea and see what works. This allows you to quickly weed out the plans and processes that are bad, and move resources to the ones that are performing. One failure should never be a reason to stop. Try everything, and put your focus on where you are having success.