You Don't Have to Know If the Idea Will Work to Start Building It

There's a strange expectation we put on ourselves when we're considering starting something new.

We want to know whether it's going to work before we're willing to begin.

And I understand why.

Nobody wants to spend months building something that doesn't make any money.

Nobody wants to put themselves out there, tell people what they're working on, invest their time and energy, and then discover that the idea isn't nearly as good as they thought it was.

But I think we're expecting an answer that nobody can honestly give us.

Because there are really two different things happening when you start building something.

One is the business itself.

Will people want it?

Can you sell it?

Can you make the economics work?

Is there actually a market for what you're trying to create?

Those are legitimate questions, and eventually you're going to need answers.

The other thing happening is what the process of building does to you.

And I don't think people give that nearly enough consideration.

When you take an idea seriously enough to act on it, you start having conversations you wouldn't otherwise have.

You have to figure out how to explain what you're doing.

You have to learn things you don't know.

You run into problems you didn't anticipate, and you discover pretty quickly which parts of your idea make sense and which parts sounded better in your head.

That's not wasted effort.

Even if the business never becomes what you imagined, you're developing the ability to see opportunities, evaluate problems, and make decisions from a position you couldn't have occupied before you started.

I was talking with somebody about a business idea he was excited about.

He'd thought through quite a few elements of it, and he wanted to know whether I thought it could work.

My answer was that it could become something substantial.

It could also never make a dollar.

Neither of us knew.

And I wasn't going to pretend otherwise just because he was excited.

But I also wasn't going to tell him to wait until he could eliminate the uncertainty, because that's not how this works.

You can do research.

You can test demand.

You can reduce your exposure.

You can make intelligent decisions about how much time and money you're willing to commit.

You should do those things.

But eventually, if you want to build something, you have to accept that you aren't going to know everything before you start.

And here's where I think the distinction matters.

The fact that taking action can help you grow doesn't mean every idea deserves unlimited investment.

It doesn't mean passion makes something commercially viable.

It certainly doesn't mean you should ignore evidence that the market isn't interested.

It means you can recognize the value of the experience without confusing that value with a guarantee of financial success.

Maybe this becomes the business.

Maybe you build it for a while, discover something important, and change direction.

Maybe the person you meet while trying to solve one problem introduces you to an opportunity you couldn't have anticipated.

I don't know.

That's part of the point.

You don't have to know exactly where an idea will lead to make a reasonable decision to pursue it.

You just have to be willing to learn what reality tells you once you do.