{"id":236369,"date":"2024-03-18T12:16:08","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T16:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coreywilkspsyd.com\/?p=236369"},"modified":"2024-03-20T12:05:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T16:05:50","slug":"mvp-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coreywilkspsyd.com\/mvp-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"The MVP Mindset: How to Overcome Perfectionism by Thinking Iteratively"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you’re an entrepreneur struggling with launching something, here’s a mindset shift that can help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn to think iteratively<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s what I mean…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to try to come up with the “perfect” plan before I built something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d spend hours, days, even weeks coming up with elaborate plans, value ladders, and content ecosystems to market everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d even run my plans by a few friends who were great at finding problems wkith anything. I thought, “If I can come up with a plan that they can’t poke holes in, THAT’S what I’ll build!”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spoiler Alert: That never happened. Because no plan is perfect.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I was waiting for perfection before I launched, so I NEVER launched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I read The Lean Startup<\/a><\/em> (aff) by Eric Ries, and a simple concept in it legitimately changed my life and the trajectory of my journey as an entrepreneur…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of building an MVP\u2014minimum viable product. You may have heard of this concept, since it\u2019s become ubiquitous in the startup space. But here\u2019s how I adapt it to my own business and even the content I create\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see everything as v1.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t get to v2 without launching v1 and getting enough feedback to iterate it into v2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I launch v1 as soon as it\u2019s viable so that I can get to v2 asap.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too many entrepreneurs think they can skip straight to v10 if they theorycraft <\/a>enough, but all that ends up happening is they think about launching, talk about launching, and plan how to launch\u2014but they never actually <\/em>launch anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s the thing…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can’t get to v10 of anything without a shit-ton of iteration. And you can\u2019t iterate without a shit-ton of feedback. And you can\u2019t get feedback without actually launching the shit you say you want to launch.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this a crude way of putting it? Yes. Is it accurate? Also yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A simple question I ask myself, and use with my executive coaching clients<\/a> who are stuck in the perfectionism-theorycrafting cycle of not-launching:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t ask, \u201cIs this as good as it can be?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask, \u201cIs this as good as I can make it today?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you ask, \u201cIs this as good as it can be?\u201d The answer will always be, \u201cNo.\u201d Because it can always be better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you ask, \u201cIs this as good as I can make it today?\u201d you\u2019re putting two constraints on it:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n