I subscribe to the startup/Silicon Valley ethos to quickly Launch → Learn → Improve when building a product or company. The sooner you start this cycle the better, even if you’re not 100% ready — because you’re never going to be 100% ready. I think it’s time to admit, however, that I’ve now been actively working on Drink•Eat•Walk for too long without launching.
It’s not that I’m holding back from launching right now, though — I still have a shit-ton of big & basic things that I have to get done before opening things up:
- Make final decision on the places I’ll stop on the tours
- Spend time in & establish relationships with these places
- Write & practice the stories I want to tell
- Run some practice tours with friends
- Take pics during these practice tours to load onto website & online profiles
- Flip profiles live & start taking bookings
There’s a ton of other smaller stuff still to do, but none of those are critical path. So WTF have I been doing with my time? I mean, pretty much every weekday I’ve been working for hours on building this business. Then you look at what I still have to do, and it appears like I’ve accomplished nothing. Something seems to be holding me back, but I’m still not sure what it is. That’s a problem.
I never set a date to go live, but DC’s tourist season starts in mid-March, so I’ve always held that in my head as my goal. It’s clear that I’ve missed this, and I’m judging it as a huge miss: Spring is the busiest season, as the cherry blossoms beckon and the weather is perfect. I’ll be doing some travel later in the spring, which was always going to make things a little weird to launch in March, and perhaps this partially fed into my holding back, but I’m still disappointed in myself.
So I hereby declare that my new launch date goal is June 1st. More to come on how I’ll keep myself more accountable to this date — and if I ever figure out what’s been holding me back.
eyeintim 
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