10 ways to get your ideas into the real world

Here are a few pointers that have helped me along the way:

1) Get in the zone

Conceptualizing is the easy part, but getting down to business can sometimes be difficult. Easing into the construction part of your idea is where 99% of people fail. Personally, my mind is geared more towards the idea phase, rather than production. But once I’m in the zone, there’s no stopping me.

Here’s how to get there:

a. Set micro goals: whether it be in your head or on paper. Taking a small step, and seeing the result quickly is the best way to get the proverbial ball rolling.

b. Cinch by the inch: Engineers typically approach huge projects by drilling things down to their smallest tasks. You can use this approach for small one or two person jobs and decide what is immediately doable. Next, attack one of those nodes on your list.

c. Just start fiddling: If you can’t concentrate on the task at hand, taking another break isn’t going to get things done. Whenever I’ve been faced with the “Crap, I can’t seem to get into this today” wall, I just play around with the job. It might be sketching, Flash or bits of code. But opening the document (or whatever) and just poking around—more often than not—has been a good way to get things going. Try it!

d. “Okay, seriously…I just can’t seem to get into this!”: Okay okay…we’ve all had those days where no advice on earth can help motivate. Hit the reset button by taking a hot bath and then a carb-fuelled nap.

2) The web project confidence killer: call it ‘beta’

Is it just me, or are some people petrified of fully standing behind a project they’ve put some effort into? Don’t call anything ‘beta’ unless you’re talking about an actual beta release to a small, registered and controlled group.

‘Beta’ labels are bad for several reasons:

a. Personally, I get a feeling like something bad is about to happen to a web service or application when ‘beta’ is plastered on it somewhere. Should I be expecting a breach of my personal information into the outside world? Will there be major outages?

b. Never feel like the job is done. Try numbered versions instead. This’ll be a great psychological upper to confirm you’ve hit real milestones.

c. The cute ‘beta’ star badge is a tired remnant of web 2.0. Aside from the above, the over-used label is just lame; plain and simple.

Stand up for your product and command some respect. After all, in most cases, the user isn’t directly paying for the beta-labeled thing. If something goes amiss, just fix it and move on. Any dedicated, logical end user (ha!) SHOULD understand.

So what does this have to do with getting your ideas into the real world? This is yet another morale booster to keep the inertia of an idea going.

Put your faith in the idea and tie yourself to the proverbial mast. Win or lose, be confident and learn from your idea’s quirks and bugs.

3) Small project, big impact.

Rickroll is just a video of Mr. Astley singing his biggest 1987 hit. But it was a phenomenon clearly created by someone on the cannabis. It was simple, small and it made waves. Mind you, I’m not sure if the people who have been Rickrolled would call it a project, but it illustrates my point well enough. Something funny (for the first two times) with a little bit of clever scripting that may have taken a single Saturday afternoon made an impact. And it’s entirely possible that your tiny web script, film, blog, tutorial—whatever—can have the same effect.

4) Measurable success (but be realistic).

For the vast majority of us, it’s difficult to persist if there is little in terms of results. It can be discouraging to invest weeks or months into a project and have little to show for it (this is especially true when developing a web application).

Of course, the only true key to success is to persist at all times, but here’s something to make the journey a little easier: Small steps.
If you’re building a web application, for example, there’s a ton of code that can go into the project before you have something on-screen that shows results. Thus, the best thing I can recommend in keeping the ball rolling is to plan in small modules. Rather than coding the entire app in a linear way, break it up into small pieces. You’ll be seeing results in hours, as opposed to days or weeks.
Another thing I can’t stress enough, while we’re on the topic of ‘small steps’, is to NEVER bite off more than you can chew. This is, above all, one of the greatest morale killers out there. There’s nothing wrong with exploring unfamiliar territory, but you got to know yourself and your abilities. Be realistic, and start a big idea in a small way. Break it up.

Remember: there are a million small steps in a thousand miles. You’ll get there.

5) Sitting on your idea does nothing.

These days, or so it would seem, there are huge, expensive courtroom battles over patents. Why? Money, of course. These days, there is a tremendous amount of money potential in ideas. You may be worried that your idea may be so good that it’s potentially worth millions of dollarydoos. And perhaps, since you haven’t got the time or fees to file a world-wide patent application, you feel it’s better to just keep it in your smug head.
I’ve been there. And this is the wrong attitude.

6) If you can’t get your idea 100% fleshed out on a napkin, it’s too ambitious for one person.

This has a lot to do with the earlier point on taking small steps. But a great way to determine if an idea is potentially a bigger piece than you can chew is to get a small, square paper napkin and a gel pen. If you can flesh out the idea, in *some* detail, on one side of a napkin, it’s more than likely to be large enough for you or you and a trusted comrade to launch the idea into the world. This method has worked for me on more than one occasion. Try it.

7) Broad strokes, quick wins.

Mock ups. They’re faaan-tastic. If you’re a visual person like me, seeing the end result in some form is a great way to stay on task. Imagination is great, but actually seeing or, better still, TOUCHING a replica of an end result is incredibly effective in focusing the mind on the steps necessary between now and then. Whether it be a web site, a restored vintage Vespa or a construction project, a mocked-up prototype or photoshopped rendering will get you to the finish in a much clearer state.

8) Set up a realistic timeline (and multiply by three).

Okay, so you’ve got everything set to begin work on your master plan. Its not too big to handle, you’ve got the tools and the talent. So how long will it take? Ultimately, this depends on how well you know yourself, and your situation. You know, more or less, how much time after your nine-to-five’r leaves you in the evening for the project. You have an understanding significant other.
“Right then, I’m guessing it’ll take 8 weeks!”
Hmmm, I think you forgot to carry the one there, professor.
I’m no slouch, but never forget about Murphy’s law…things happen that are beyond your control. There are crunches, unforeseen problems and obstacles. There are relationship meltdowns. There are flu viruses.
If you want an accurate timeline (even when pushing yourself hard in your spare time), multiply your original conservative time line estimate by three.
Nine times in ten, it’ll still come down to the wire.

9) Keep things simple and less can go wrong.

As a veteran (and continuing to do battle) of a start-up aimed at the Japanese market, this is absolutely true. I started with a very simple concept—one miles away from the ambitious plan that begun my exploration of business in Japan—and certainly fewer issues arose than if I had taken a huge loan or approached VCs.

In the interest of just getting into the proverbial ring quickly, with plans to stay and grow indefinitely, I chose to:

i) Focus on a useful product/service that had a wide appeal for the Japanese. In my case, this was learning to speak English.

ii) Be flexible – The Japanese market is complex and fast-moving. Not only did I enter the industry with little to no Japanese language ability, but also with little more than a gut feeling and practically anecdotal and observational research. If my plan was large, expensive and highly niche-focused, my company would’ve been dead and buried within 4 months. Nimble flexibility is the key to everything.

iii) Not fall in love with my first idea. It’s easy to get attached to the early, but profound, ‘eureka’ that brought me to Japan. But had I not kept my eyes open and my ear to the ground and ignored everything but the original idea, it would be a meltdown of dot-com circa 2001 proportions.

iv) Have a painfully limited budget and work around it. This means using Japanese friends to translate for little or no money, running into the nearest Japanese mobile phone shop to use their handset to test a flash application, using open-source software (props to GNU!) and even borrowing emergency cash from Mom, Dad and the significant other to keep things going. If you can’t handle going without, and working for months with no income, entrepreneurship probably isn’t for you anyway ;-)

10) Have a tea. Or beer.

I like to stay focused and avoid the inevitable morning headaches, so the consumption of brew has all but ceased for me these days. “Have a beer”, I suppose, is more metaphorical. Quite simply, there is no substitute for taking a well-earned break to socialize and catch up with your mates. Don’t get so focused that you forget about the reason you’re developing your idea in the first place—to better yourself, your life, possibly those around you and, if you’ve got heart, to ultimately make the world a better place. It’s easy to lose this big-picture focus whilst in the muddy trenches of development.
Have a beer.

11) BONUS: “The force is in you. Force yourself.” – Harrison Ford