Buildspace Diary: Weeks 2 & 3

This is getting harder to do.

I’ve found that my previous ‘good ideas’ and projects were just pipe dreams that didn’t amount to anything, because I always paused when it came to releasing them into the big bad world, and managed to talk myself out of the idea having any legs.

Week 2 required us to create a ‘toy’ version - and I managed that. A 15 page summary of the longer Simpletenders Complete Tender Toolkit (from Novice to Pro) - which we needed to get some feedback on.

Thanks to some very helpful and lovely people I worked with in the past, I got four pieces of feedback that were incredibly valuable. I continue to get more as I post on Ramen Club and talk to people I worked with on Linkedin.

Now for week 3, we have to Launch it.

There is a lot of confusion around what a launch actually is. That’s mainly because a lot of people don’t want to do it, and Buildspace asks that you get your first ten people to care about what you are producing.

Launching is very simple - it's just shoving the idea out into the world, in whatever format it's in. No excuses, no 'polishing it to be perfect', no 'missing your one opportunity', just get it out in the world.

I believe that I have a good idea and the project has legs, but testing that in the market is bloody hard - and as Farza pointed out, it’s the biggest reason to keep working on the idea rather than pushing it out into the market and iterating on the feedback you get there.

The latter is way more important.

I know I’m very confident in my own opinion, but that doesn’t mean a thing if I don’t get feedback from the people who would actually use the blasted thing.

Because - let’s face it - I believe that this idea could work, but it could fall flat on its face when the market sees it.

They might not actually want the bloody thing.

I have been messing around with a launch page, I have the preview version up on my hosted version of Writebook, and all I need to do is pull my finger out and launch it.

Tonight I complete everything, and then tomorrow morning I launch on LinkedIn. I’ll also call in a few favours from everybody I know to have a look, sign up, promote it, do whatever they can.

I might then spam out the announcement on Monday, too.