Page 12 - The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch - PDFDrive.com

Over the next six months I mapped out the idea and planned exactly what topics
to include, how to deliver the documents, how to charge, and even how to
employ writers.

This was going to make me my first million. HR managers were already paying
thousands for HR staff, so I figured they would certainly pay a few hundred
dollars for every document they could ever need. As far as my research revealed,
nothing like this existed.

I was proud of my plan—it was organized, meticulous, and thorough. Nervously
submitting the assignment with hopes of earning a great mark, I waited… and
waited for the results. Finally, the day came. I opened the assignment and saw an
A. BOOM!

There was one problem: I didn’t launch the business.

Sure, I had created a beautiful business plan after spending countless hours in the
library deep diving into painstaking research.

But launching a business wasn’t in the marking criteria.

Looking back, the timing was perfect. I had this idea just after the first dot com
crash, and services like this became mainstream a few years later. HR documents
and policies were easy to share and buy online. In hindsight, I’m sure it had the
potential to be a seven-or eight-figure business.

I will never know for sure. You can never predict what happens after you start a
business. Long-term plans and detailed documents are pointless. Most
businesses go on to do something very different from what they set out to do.
Today, this is called a pivot.

I learned a very valuable lesson from my failure to launch.

That lesson is: “You don’t learn until you launch.”