3 Startups in 9 Weeks
I’m going to try and launch 3 startups in the next 9 weeks (1 startup every 3 weeks until Christmas break). The last project I built took 2 months so this will definitely be a challenge 😅
Here’s how each sprint will look:
Build: 2 weeks
Launch: 1 week
Build (2 Weeks)
During the build phase there are three things I’m going to prioritize
Decide What to Build (1 day)
Build It (13 days)
Scope Hammer (Continuous)
Decide What to Build (1 day)
To figure out what to work on I’m going to borrow an idea from Ryan Singer called “the betting table”.
The betting table is the place where you organize and synthesize your ideas. It could be a meeting with your co-founder or if you’re a solo dev like me (who’s looking for a co-founder ;)) it could be a spreadsheet.
This is what my betting table looks:
On the far left of the board I have “💡 New Ideas”, then “🌱 Excited About”, then “🌳 Working On”, then "💩 Poop Ideas” (I like keeping track of my poop ideas - they make good material for jokes).
Throughout the day if I get an idea it’ll write it down. After each launch I’ll go back through the list, clean it up a bit, and pick the next thing to work on.
Build (13 days)
This one is self explanatory but maybe the most important. Do the work. Get your hands dirty.
Scope Hammering (Continuous)
Scope hammering is another Singerism and it refers to hammering your idea to get to the essence of the problem. It’s a kind of meditation.
This is similar to what Elon Musk means when he says “start from first principles”.
Here are some questions I use to help with scope hammering:
If this looked easy how would it look?
Am I solving the right problem?
Is this the best solution for this problem?
Clean Up and Launch (1 week)
Clean Up (3 days)
Clean up should take roughly 3 days. During this time I’ll be stress testing the tool.
If everything went well with scope hammering, hopefully this will be easy.
Launch (4 days)
The launch will take the remainder of the sprint (4 days). During this time I’ll post the idea to online groups (Facebook groups, Slack groups, Reddit…).
After posting to online groups I’ll go over the results, rest a bit, and repeat.
Wrapping Up
To summarize, for the first 2 weeks I’ll decide what to work on, build it, and scope hammer. For the last week I’ll clean it up and launch. After that, pray and repeat.
This is definitely the most ambitious challenge I’ve made. And the goal isn’t just to launch 3 startups in 9 weeks, it’s also to push 110% at my full time job, and to push 150% on my relationship and romance with Nyah (the wifey).
Wish me luck :)
Josh