The importance of Momentum

Gaining and keeping momentum on a project is a critical component of it's success. In the same way that a car requires a lot of energy to initially get going, projects generally require an initial burst of energy. Once this is applied though, if you can maintain your momentum a much smaller amount of energy is required to keep moving at the speed to which you initially accelerated.

Likewise, once you've lost your momentum, it takes a pretty large amount of energy just to get things moving at the same pace again. It's not just inconvenient, starting and stopping on a project quite simply wastes a lot of energy. People need reminding as to what the priorities are. Team members become engaged on other initiatives. Vendors may think you're not serious about working with them. Employees question the importance of the project. The list goes on and on. In fact, not starting a project is much better than starting a project that constantly loses it's momentum.

No one wants to work on a something that seems like it's on life support. People like working on fun, active, fast-paced projects where tasks are regularly being completed. It turns out that these are also the easiest to manage because they have a ton of momentum - they only require a little bit of energy to keep things moving quickly. You may need to steer one way or the other and slow down or speed up in different situations, but relative to starting from a near stand-still it's a negligible amount of energy.

Momentum is very real, and losing it on your projects can have far reaching ripple affects which are almost never good.

Naivete is an asset

We love talking to entrepreneurs about how their businesses got started and the challenges they encountered; we get a ton of inspiration by talking to them. One thing you might often hear an entrepreneur say is that had they known ahead of time how difficult something was going to be, they never would have started it.

Naivete, it turns out, is an asset.

Have you ever had an idea and shared it with someone who knows a lot in that particular field? Likely they dismisses it, stating how difficult or complex it would be. They'll give you a host of reasons as to why the consumer won't buy it, or why it can't be built, or if it can be built and the consumer would buy it, why marketing it would be so hard that no one would find out about it anyway.

The problem is, they're burdened with the knowledge of all the difficulties that inevitably lie ahead. In their minds, the challenges dwarf any possible benefit. They don't understand the dream because they're too hung up on the effort that would be involved.

Their knowledge is a liability.

This isn't to say that expertise is bad. Becoming an expert, and working with experts, is probably an inevitability (and a good thing!) of any successful person or business. The point however, is that before you do anything, you have to get started. Anything that helps you get started is an asset.

If you have the opportunity to start something, don't let the fact that you don't know everything prevent you from trying. Very likely, the reason you're even willing to make the attempt is because you're "naive" enough to try. This instantly gives you a leg up on your competition.

Sometimes knowing too much can be a liability, embrace your naivete.

If software can be a service, how can a
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