A Crappy Vision Is Better Than Lack of Vision

A Crappy Vision Is Better Than Lack of Vision

Yesterday, I wrote about how I felt like Captain Jack Sparrow in search of a boat. Well, that’s not entirely true. We have a boat, the boat just happens to be a row boat. But like Jack, we also have a broken compass. However, I think this is all pretty normal for a startup that has only been around for 1.5 years. I’ve read time and time again that startup success takes years.

After March Madness, we were just kind of drifting with no vision. Maybe we were jaded by our optimistic expectations. I’m not sure. But we took time off of the Sports Fan Apps. Around the Big Omaha Conference, we developed the idea for Mindspread. We got pretty jazzed up about that but then realized we started getting a number of emails to update our football apps. We lost passion for the football apps and weren’t sure what to do. We finally decided upon the strategy of making enough money so that it gives us the freedom to choose what we want to do. This includes the following:

  1. Consult. We currently consult with a few clients on a diverse range of products. This helps us to sharpen both our technical and our business skills.
  2. DJ Explode. This is a soon to be released iPhone app that may open the door for alternative revenue streams.
  3. Sports Fan Apps. These pay the bills. In fact, these make us enough money that one of us could take a full-time salary on these alone.

I’m not in love with this vision. In fact, I think that we can do better. I think that the context switching between projects can be detrimental. I also believe that it spreads our resources too thin. It doesn’t allow us to focus our expertise on making one kick ass product that truly changes the world. However, we are learning a lot, we are having fun, and we are making money. We will get to our destination, it’s not a matter of ‘if’, it’s a matter of ‘when.’

But the message is simple. You must have a vision. You must execute upon this vision, even if the vision sucks. If you’re not doing anything, you’re not learning or growing. That’s worse than not being focused and having a meaningful purpose.

Follow me on Twitter: @jprichardson

-JP Richardson

If you made it this far, you should follow me on Twitter.  

-JP


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