24th September 2021
Ah, week two already. The week where I have to actually start doing things and make progress. I’ve pretty much spent this week doing market research (if I had a fiver for every time I’ve come across the phrase “market research” this week, I’d probably be a millionaire by now), and ending up going down rabbit holes only to have to be pulled out of them again, simply because I’ve buried myself in tonnes of reports and trends and whatnot.
I’ve started to overthink literally everything ever, and it’s starting to take a toll on me, since I’ve come across too much information to the point where I don’t know what to do with all other than to be overwhelmed by literally everything ever, since I’ve made the mistake of trying to analyse literally everything ever, which has ironically held me back from actually doing anything productive. I guess that’s what analysis paralysis does to you, and I’m prone to over analysing things to the point where I don’t do anything because I’ve analysed the situation and the idea to death.
On top of this, I thought that looking at the trends and seeing what’s currently popular (rather than focusing on what it is that I actually want to do, whether or not it’s actually popular) was the way to go, but following trends in itself becomes a tad bit overwhelming since there’s no personality or any individuality to it since you’re literally just following the crowd and adding to the already noisy noise of that crowd. I decided to look at startups along with the more commercial side of things, and let’s just say that I don’t want to go down that route because it seems soul crushing. I mean, what’s the point of doing something that everyone else is already doing?
It seems a bit pointless to me, and my word, the people in the startup/commercial spheres literally have no imagination whatsoever, yet they claim to be unique, disruptive, and innovative, just like everyone else (yes, this is a reference to a piece I did earlier this year that criticises most commercial web design agencies), which I find really ironic because they all say and do the same things, but they package it ever so slightly differently so that no one suspects a thing. To be honest, the commercial world is a gosh darn snooze fest full of human looking robots (usually young white middle class extroverted lads that like to get absolutely wasted on Friday nights, and base their whole personality on that) all saying the same things and being okay with it. I mean, HOW DO YOU BE OKAY WITH BEING THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE, DO YOU NOT GET BORED OF BEING JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE? Sorry, I just had to vent a bit there, because in my mind, everyone seems okay with it. I know that commercial stuff is always going to be popular since it’s going to appeal to the masses, but ideally (not to sound pretentious or anything), I don’t want my business to become super commercial and mainstream. I find that I’d probably work better by niching my business down to a niche (but not too niche) audience, so that I can work on a smaller scale instead of being everything to everyone (because let’s be honest, being everything to everyone is just setting yourself and your business up for failure). The problem is to actually find out who my audience actually is, and to find people who would actually want what I offer. I can research and stare at graphs forever, but in order to truly find out, I just have to build prototypes and show them to the world.
I guess in order to get anything done, you just have to do it. There’s no point in over thinking about it only to never start doing it, since it’s probably better to start and fail, rather than to never start at all. In my mind, it’s better an “oops” than a “what if”, and I have to actually apply it to real life since I actually want to get something out of this instead of just spending the whole year overthinking and over researching things, along with constantly going round in circles, looking busy but not going anywhere since I’m too busy looking busy by over researching things to the point where I don’t actually do those things, but not having an actual product or service to offer, let alone have anything to show for it. Now’s the time for me to get out of my head and get into the real world a bit.
Speaking of going into the real world a bit, I attended 3 online events this week. They weren’t any networking events or anything, but just talks about things. At least it’s a start, and at least I actually did things (albeit listen to strangers talk about things), but then again, I don’t want to spend all of my time attending events for the sake of attending events, but not actually doing anything with the information that I get from those events, because then again, it’s another form of information overload, which will eventually lead down to analysis paralysis, and I basically do not want to go there.
So, that’s week two done and dusted. It feels like I haven’t actually done anything other than to do the M word (which I won’t say in full because I’ve had enough of that phrase for this week) as well as stare at reports and trends, as well as going to a couple of events, and just overanalysing things as well as having super unrealistic expectations of what I want my business to be about. Now, time to actually create some prototypes so that I know what I’m working with, along with figuring out what my strengths are (so that I can work with those instead of learning something completely new and out of my scope simply because it’s trending), and find out who would actually find my business (and my business idea) appealing.