Starting Before You're Ready

The Trade Desk

Ship It Ugly

There’s a disease in marketing — and in business generally — that kills more good ideas than bad strategy ever will. It’s the need to get everything perfect before anyone sees it.

The best work starts with a blank page and the willingness to fill it badly.

I’ve watched talented people sit on great ideas for months. They tweak the logo. They rewrite the copy. They redesign the landing page. And by the time they’re “ready,” the window has closed or someone else shipped it first.

The 70% Rule

Here’s a framework I stole from the military and applied to marketing:

“If you have 70% of the information, 70% of the resources, and 70% confidence — move.”

Waiting for 100% is a luxury that doesn’t exist. The remaining 30% comes from doing, not planning.

What this looks like in practice:

• Website launch: Ship with 5 solid pages, not 50 mediocre ones
• Email newsletter: Send the first issue before you have a “content calendar”
• Social media: Post before you’ve perfected your brand voice
• Product launch: Get 10 real users before building the feature roadmap

Real work happens in messy, imperfect environments — not in polished pitch decks.

Ugly Ships, Pretty Sinks

Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, said it best:

" If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. "

The first version of Amazon was hideous. Google was a blank page with a text box. Craigslist still looks like it was built in 1996 — because it was. None of that mattered. What mattered was that they shipped.

Your competitors aren’t waiting for perfect. Your customers don’t need perfect. They need something that works, delivered by someone they trust.

The Cost of Waiting

Every week you don’t ship, three things happen:

1. Your enthusiasm fades — the idea that excited you on Monday feels stale by Friday
2. The market moves — someone else solves the problem, or the problem changes
3. Your standards inflate — the longer you wait, the more “perfect” needs to be

The distance between here and perfect is infinite. The distance between here and shipped is one decision.

The Workshop

The “Ship It” Checklist

Before you launch anything — a campaign, a product, a website, a newsletter — run it through this checklist. If you can check at least 4 out of 6, ship it.

The Checklist:

1. Does it solve a real problem? Not a theoretical one. A real one that real people have told you about.
2. Can someone use it without instructions? If it needs a manual, simplify it.
3. Does it represent you honestly? Not perfectly — honestly. Is the quality consistent with who you are?
4. Is there a way to get feedback? A reply-to email. A form. A phone number. Something.
5. Can you improve it after launch? If it’s carved in stone, wait. If it’s digital, ship it.
6. Will you regret NOT shipping it? This is the tiebreaker.

SHIP-IT SCORE
=============
Questions answered "yes": ___/6

6/6 → Ship it yesterday
5/6 → Ship it today
4/6 → Ship it this week
3/6 → One more round of edits
2/6 → Rethink the approach
1/6 → Back to the drawing board

How to use this:

Print it out. Tape it above your desk. Every time you catch yourself polishing instead of publishing, run the checklist. Most of the time, you’ll find you’ve been ready for days.

Simple systems beat complicated strategies. Every time.

The Sanctuary

The Parable of the Talents (Revisited)

There’s a version of the Parable of the Talents that we don’t talk about enough.

We focus on the servants who invested and multiplied. Good for them. But look at the servant who buried his talent in the ground. Why did he do it?

He was afraid. Not lazy. Not rebellious. Afraid.

Afraid of getting it wrong. Afraid of losing what he’d been given. Afraid that his best effort wouldn’t be good enough.

Sound familiar?

Fear Dressed as Wisdom

Here’s the thing about perfectionism: it feels responsible. It feels like stewardship. “I’m just being careful with what God gave me.”

But the master didn’t reward carefulness. He rewarded faithfulness in action.

The light doesn’t wait for the perfect reader. It falls on whatever page is open.

The servant who buried his talent had a perfect, pristine, unused gift to return. And the master called him wicked.

Not because he failed. Because he never tried.

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.”

— Ecclesiastes 9:10

The instruction isn’t “do it perfectly.” It’s “do it with your might.” There’s a world of difference. One is about the outcome. The other is about the offering.

The Archive

Resources for Shipping Imperfectly

Further Reading

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield → — The definitive book on creative resistance
• Atomic Habits by James Clear → — Systems over goals, consistency over intensity
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott → — Permission to write badly as the first step to writing well