The Real-time Plan

The big battle plan? Credit: wrath85.deviantart.com

Do you have a plan for your startup? I bet most of us do. Not just one, but multiple versions. You’re not alone.

I’ve learned that having a single plan isn’t good enough. Everything changes so quickly and there are way too many variables beyond our control. Sometimes shit just happens, or perhaps we as entrepreneurs overestimate our abilities to achieve certain results. Or maybe there are certain aspects of a product that receive feedback from users and brings the entire grand plan to a halt.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to get at here is that having just one plan is risky. We need many plans to suit many many different scenarios to achieve our goals. A desperate situation calls for desperate actions. But while in a favorable situation, a bullish plan would be more suitable. You get the drift.

On our team, we’re relentlessly focused on the product and the vision. Our product is content, so we need to maintain a good quality of content, writing, and form. We also have an event coming up, and we’re working hard to keep the content quality high and also ensure a good experience for all who attend, as well as those who don’t. Our vision is to push the Asia community forward, as best we can.

With the product and vision engraved at the back of our minds, we need a solid real-time plan to get it done (i.e. a plan that changes with time, situation, and rolls with the punches). That doesn’t mean we just wait for things to happen and react. We still have to be very active about building the product and chasing the vision. That means creating awesome content that fills a need, informing the world about what’s happening here in Asia, in line with the team’s vision and reader feedback.

So far ours has been a steady growing process, interspersed with bold leaps of faith (see our recent  “fuck, just do it” post). But that’s our ‘real-time’ plan, so to speak. It may be somewhat disorganized at times but it’s what keeps our small team rocking.