Page 115 - The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch - PDFDrive.com

2. Solve Problems as They Arise

A lot of business owners spend time solving problems they don’t have. Rob
Walling refers to this as premature optimization. Examples include:

1. Getting a flawless credit card payment process setup before they have
customers.

2. Optimizing their website before they have traffic.
3. Hiring staff before they have work for them.
4. Investing in the best systems before they have enough work to warrant it.

Normally these decisions stem from believing that when you have a problem,
you won’t be able to resolve it quickly. Yet this assumption is often wrong.
Many of these issues can be resolved quickly. Here are some examples from our
own business:

1. WP Curve had 200 recurring customers for our WordPress support business
before it had a help desk. We were using Google docs, Trello, and a shared
email inbox. When the business outgrew that system, it moved to a help
desk system in one day.

2. I launched with an MVP site that I built myself for $77. Once I had proven
the business and had enough traffic to the site (20,000 visits per month), my
team invested $1,000 in a professional design and it was live within a week.

These days you can solve most business problems quickly. There’s no reason to
spend any time on problems you don’t have. Doing so will only cost you
valuable time and money. It will take attention away from the work you should
be doing.

There’s a good chance that if you are a new business, you only have one
problem: not enough customers. That’s where you should be spending your time.