Do you feel like you are sabotaging your projects or business ventures just before you hit the market?

In biashara, its not about how you start but how you finish…finish here means getting your product or service out and giving the market a feel of it. Most entrepreneurs are self sabotaging, looking for excuses as to why they can’t go to market. They will slave day and night to put together their product only to give up at the 11th hour and with a myriad of reasons as well:

• oooh, that guy has a better blog than me
• ooooh, I am running out of chumes
• ooooh, the competition will eat me alive
• ooooh, I can’t focus now…life is happening
• ooooh, I have this other idea that i think can work better!!
• and the list goes on and on

I repeat…it’s about finishing what you started, ideas are many and not mutally exclusive so enough of this “you stole my idea” bullshit. It should be more like…”Chief, your a mad chap…you beat me to it…next round is mine”. I am yet to meet someone with copyright to and idea…execution is what matters so stop blowing hot air about what your product will or can do and simply put it out their for guys to take a stab at.The folks over at 37signals always have these thoughts on point, one of those which I like and should be applied by every entrepreneur is how to launch on budget and on time. There are only two ways to go about this:

1. when you run out of money….LAUNCH!
2. when you run out of time….LAUNCH!

Stop being a wandering generality and resulting to if only I had more time, if only I had more cash, if only…just get it out there! The other thing about doing projects or going into business is that much of the straight up thinking is done toward the end of the project when you are about to launch. This leads to one small additional feature being added, leading to two small bugs, leading to a change in architecture, leading to a change in design…what you are after that is OVER BUDGET, OUT OF TIME, ZERO PRODUCT or SERVICE. Most of my case studies lie in the software development field but I believe it applies to all industries. Tear apart your project at the beginning when no real work has been done. This will save you time and money at the end of it all. Be obsessively careful what you start with…start well, keep the momenntum and go to market.

Here’s to finishing everything in 2010 on time and on budget!

Mbugua Njihia

An Africa based entrepreneur in the pursuit of opportunities without regard to resources currently controlled striving to build services that have real-world value for my beloved continent and beyond while having fun along the way.