Getting Real summary

Every entrepreneur wants to strike it big, but it’s important not to take things too fast. After all, physics tells us that the heavier the mass, the harder it is to change its direction. 

This means that being small keeps your business agile and adaptable, able to hold on to good ideas while quickly dropping bad ones.

Just like being in a hurry to grow your company can get you into trouble, rushing a product to market is a sure route to failure. Before you throw that app out there, you need to establish priorities first.

For starters, you’ll need to articulate your big idea concisely by answering a few questions. This will help you outline your vision for your product. Ask yourself, “Why does my product exist?” and “What makes it different from the competition’s product?”

When setting up a new business, time is of the essence. Unfortunately, there are plenty of ways to waste it. You need to optimize your schedule – here’s a few tips to help you do so.

First, you’re at your most productive when your surroundings melt away and don’t distract you. This is why so many people enjoy working either early in the morning or late at night. During these quiet times you can easily get into the zone – a state of mind when you are totally focused on work.

If you’re not already aware, you’ll learn soon enough that you can’t do everything yourself. But how do you pick the right people to help you realize your big idea?

When starting off with a small crew – like you should – you don’t want to put together an “A-Team” but instead choose a well-rounded group of broadly talented individuals.

As a new entrepreneur, it can be difficult to manage your product’s features, but it’s essential to exercise discipline when choosing the elements your application will offer. You should be fine as long as you stick to the author’s motto: it’s better to launch half a product than a half-assed product. 

To avoid building a half-assed product, you should be comfortable with launching your idea before it’s completely realized. The result will be a lean, simple and smart product that forms a good foundation on which your company can then build and improve.

First impressions are crucial, and the same holds for software applications. Since your product’s interface is the first thing a user interacts with, your interface essentially is your product. This means it’s important to take care of the interface early on in your development process.

In fact, when it comes to web applications, dialing in the interface should even come before the bulk of programming. If you go the other way around, you’ll quickly find that programming becomes the hardest part of the job. If your interface is weak, you’ll face an extremely complicated and expensive challenge in cleaning it up or improving it.

So your product is ready and you’re set to release it to the market. But first you’ll need to strategize, as it’s essential to ensure that access to your product is painless and straightforward for the user.

It’s especially important to make the process of signing up as trouble-free as possible for your target audience. Your website could show a message like, “Sign up and login in under a minute!”