So, my New Shiny Thing is live and I shall tell you about it in a few paragraphs, but first here are some lessons learned:
1. You better love the crap out of your idea if it’s a big project, because that will leave you with some shreds of enthusiasm after weeks of grinding. If you are luke-warm about a big project, RUN. RUN NOW. SAVE YOURSELF.
2. Your two biggest resources are your brain (which is actually full of useful advice and you should be nice to it) and your friends. If you’re not ready to make a Big Shiny Thing, then spend your time making more friends. Actually, this is always a useful activity. (Number of people who have provided advice, time, sign-up testing, CSS-punching, critiques, interviews, etc for this course: more than 40. Thank you, every single one.)
3. Shoot a video of yourself chock-full of enthusiasm about the resource for your welcome page. If nothing else it will recharge your batteries to watch it when you’ve forgotten why you’re doing this.
4. Don’t skip breakfast, it never ends well.
5. To-do lists. Do NOT try to remember all 17,342 tasks on your list because that way lies madness and missed deadlines. Get it written down where it’s safe and will stop bugging you every five minutes.
6. Don’t hesitate to get help on tasks that are within your expertise. Just because you can do them doesn’t mean you should.
7. Invest in line with your goals. A nice guideline is to spend as much as your first two sales will pay you. (So if you’re releasing a $7 e-book, do it all for as close to free as you can.) I need to make two sales to recoup all my investment in header, tools, and paid advice.
8. Your first product should be tiny. Specific. Released within a week. It gives you the skills and confidence to be insanely ambitious later.
9. Soft launches (no specific window for signup) are much less stressful than hard launches. You can release something, and then market it afterwards.
10. You can tweak unimportant stuff later. Pick a date and launch.
11. Go for walks, every day.
12. Yes, I know the weather is horrible. Go anyway.
13. Don’t start unless you’re 100% sure that this is a resource that people need. Real people, who live in the world right now. You may get uncertain about this later as you decide that everything you’re producing is rubbish, so remind yourself. This will help real people.
14. Try hard to keep your expectations low. You’ll freak out less.
15. Still, prepare for the possibility that you’ll do very, very well.
16. If you only make products you’re excited to tell people about then selling will never feel weird.
17. Have fun.
So what is it already?
It’s called The Awesome Website Extravaganza and it’s a 17-module course on starting a magnificent, kick-ass, awesome website. It starts with strategy (including how to identify and attract your Right People), then covers content (including, for the people who asked for tutorials, how to make video and audio, how to find your authentic voice, and how to produce content regularly) and then technology (including WordPress, plugins, autoresponders and getting paid online).
For people who have no website at all it’s a miracle, complete with trumpets and angels and special effects. It’s really everything you need to know to start a website.
For people who have a website already? It’s still going to be useful for many of you. There are so many specific skills we want to learn more about, or wish we understood better, or need to improve. And you can always buy individual modules as they become available.
Interested? Learn more about the awesomest website-building course ever!
And thank you for being here, dearest. I couldn’t have done it without you.