@rasmusrygh wrote something which resonated the other day, about being in the transition between analysis and action; between formulating your next business idea, and acting on uncertainty anyway:
What I’m doing now feels like waiting for some magic to happen, and that’s basically the same as praying for rain when you are thirsty, it won’t solve anything.
I was and still somewhat in this limbo phase right now. Very often it does feel like I’m just “praying for rain when thirsty”. I had swung between crazy busy periods of launching minimal viable products, trying a variety of random ideas, and seeing what sticks… hoping something sticks. And then taking time to reflect and plot, then doing the whole cycle all over again, iterating towards something that works. Even with a couple of products like Keto List Singapore and Sweet Jam Sites under my belt, I still feel like I’m looking for something big(ger), something viral, something that sticks.
It’s a slow grind, not the usual overnight success stories we’re used to reading about. Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing something wrong, but reading @rasmusrygh’s post made me realised that most of us are grinding it out on our own time, at our own pace.
I found further solace today when reading another awesome tweetstorm by @GoodMarketingHQ, about the marketing genius of Lil Nas X. College dropout, no influence, no money, he wanted to pursue music but didn’t write that many songs starting out. Instead he built his audience on Twitter by writing songs for funny memes which he’ll post on Twitter for his friends. Slowly but surely, it caught on, went viral, and eventually went on to top the Billboard charts.
A lot of people like to say a kid accidentally got lucky. No. This was no accident…… Things didn’t happen to Nas. Things happened because of Nas. Virality is not mystical. Take a peek behind the curtain. Nas is sitting in his underpants, on his sister’s couch, iPhone in hand, making the whole thing happen.
Behind every story of overnight success is a slow grind you never heard.