When is the right time to launch a new product? When is the perfect moment to seize a new opportunity?
Now.
Entrepreneurs often ask me these questions, and I am becoming more bold in encouraging them to act sooner rather than later. It’s not that I always think their products or opportunities are perfect, but if someone doesn’t encourage them to act now, it’s quite possible that they never will.
A lot of times, we hesitate to deliver a new product or service until we believe it’s perfect. While we are waiting, we might miss the opportunity to be the first of our kind in a new market. Or, as we agonize trying to make our offering better, we fail to put our solution in front of customers and get the feedback we really need.
When you have a new idea, pursue it. Organizations that fail to innovate ultimately die because it takes them too long to launch new products and services. Too many businesses are too hesitant, too risk-averse, and have too many laborious processes in place that prohibit progress. Don’t be one of those organizations!
Before Warby Parker came along, people that wore eyeglasses understood that they would have to drop a fortune when it was time to update their prescription. They trusted local retailers or their doctor’s offices to name the price and hoped that insurance would cover a portion of the cost. The founders of Warby Parker saw this was a problem and pursued the solution through innovation. They make stylish eyeglasses affordable and accessible to all people through their website and local stores in select cities. For every pair of glasses bought, they donate another pair to people in need and still manage to be one of the most successful and profitable new companies of this decade. The founders of Warby Parker had an idea, took a risk, and established a company that provides an innovative (and stylish) solution to an expensive problem for millions of people.
If you search long enough and hard enough, you’ll always be able to find reasons to justify not taking a risk. Don’t give yourself the time to find those reasons.
As I get older, the projects get bigger, the stakes get higher, and I find it increasingly more difficult to fight the gravitational pull of doubt. But, each time I’m willing to take the leap, it opens new opportunities to create something remarkable.
Pearl Buck explained this phenomenon well: “The young do not know enough to be prudent; therefore, they attempt the impossible and achieve it generation after generation.”
Because young people “don’t know better,” they strive for things that many believe to be impossible. And you know what? They often achieve their goals simply because they had the courage to start pursuing them. Innovation is an area of life and of business where the old can learn something from the young.
Stop thinking. Start doing. Now.
