Have I told you already about this one idea I had that would be such a successful business?

Probably all of us have had conversations starting in a similar way. For many of us there is a huge fascination in thinking about new business ideas.

What’s even more fun: Before thinking through this “one-million-dollar-idea” we start imagining how to actually spend all the money we would earn.

We keep this great idea in us, happily think about it now and then but at some point there is always one big realisation:

This would actually be a ton of work.

Let’s better not do it. Stick to the 9-5 grind. It wouldn’t have worked anyways.

We enter a short doom cycle and two weeks later our “best-business-idea-of-all-times” is gone. And there is probably already a new idea glooming in the back of your head.

The cycle begins again.

The graveyard of unfinished business ideas

I personally also felt conflicted for quite a long time about which idea I should pursue as a side hustle. Sometimes I got beyond the point where I realised that it would be work.

I started building. And while building a new idea is always exciting, sticking to an idea that has no audience (yet) and seeing it through is not so much fun.

So I stopped.

And my once-so-great idea was burried at the graveyard of unfinished business ideas besides unfinished online courses, e-books, web-apps and many others.

How to break the doom cycle

One day while I was again thinking about stopping one and starting another project I came across a tweet that struck me:

It was Daniel Vassallo’s Small Bets approach. His idea of not building this one enormous product with 3 year time-to-market but instead focusing on a portfolio of small bets really resonated with me. Especially when there are other things going on in your life besides your side hustles (which is probably true for most of us) this approach is way more feasible.
 

The beauty of the small bets approach

Set aside a few days to build something that you can actually finish.

Get it out of the door.

See the results.

Get motivated for the next project.

Repeat.
 

Turns out this process is way more motivating and I personally get a lot more done this way. This idea is therefore one of the fundamentals my upcoming project “The Year of Product” is build upon. I will take 52 small bets to explore what works for me and resonates with a broader audience as well.
And I am convinced this approach can work for you, too.

If you’re currently stuck with a project that you can’t get over the finish line think about it from another angle:

What’s the bare minimum that you would need to do to ship it?
Could you set aside a few hours or days during the next two weeks to finish it?
What would be the minimum level of success you would feel happy with?
It is probably not as hard as you think.
 

Take a small bet.

And then another one.