This article originally appeared ten years ago, in our weekly ezine, S. P. A. C. E. But the ideas of starting to start, and taking initiative, seem especially important to re-share as we change directions now and return our attention to new guests just joining us in Southeast Asia. When do you make a stab at getting started? When do you not? It’s easy to not begin, but in this region, not-beginning has a lot to do with fear of judgment, failing, or losing face. So let’s think about it. Let me reshare S P A C E | ‘Starting to Start,’ with you here, today.
Max Seelemann: ‘Contexts change, methods evolve and priorities shift… We learn as we go.’
SOMETHING FUN TODAY.
Curious about their app Ulysses, A. Spaice got in touch with The Soulmen’s lead developer, Max Seelemann (@macguru17), whose office is in Leipzig, Germany. Design Kompany never imagined our original ‘hello’ query about journaling apps would morph into a dialogue about software development and, more specifically, starts. Yet with all creative processes, sometimes knowing which ideas to move on is a big question mark.
Today we share what we learned from one entrepreneur: how to tackle the question, ‘How do I start?’
AS: Tell me about the Soulmen, Max. How are you doing?
MS: Hi. We’re doing great. It took a long time to get the business running, but now we’re 12 people already. We’re following a grand vision that is now finally coming together, piece by piece.
AS: You seem to have a mix of experiences in bringing ideas to fruition. Can you talk a little bit about the ‘how’ of getting a thing started?
MS: I usually only get moving from internal pressure. There needs to be something that I finally want to tackle or that nagged me for too long and that I can no longer ignore. But then, I try to be as ambitious as feasible. I try to be bold in whatever I do—if I work on something I want it to be better than anything else out there.
The actual process is usually quite straightforward. We usually make a concept first, evolve on it and then work step by step. We validate that concept after every step and adjust as needed. If I have learned one thing from working like that, then it’s that you will never ever end up with a result that matches an original concept.
We learn as we go. Adjusting for that is probably one of the most important aspects of getting things actually done.
AS: Options. There are always so many. When do you know it’s time to move from idea phase to ‘go?’
MS: The biggest lesson is to just start. Start by building a small prototype. Or by decorating the room before the walls are up. Start by building something horrible that doesn’t at all match what you envisioned. Or let someone else make the first step, and take it from there. It does not matter how good your first take is – but it is absolutely important to have a grounding to work on. You need something that is there, that you can perceive and maybe even works somehow, to be able to fully understand the issue you are trying to solve. Don’t theoreticize too much. Too much theoreticizing is not going to bring you anywhere further than just a little of it. Make a sketch and take it for a spin. Talk to other people and try to explain it. Then make adjustments and repeat. Once you’re there, you got started.
Software development, the way we work in it, is a cyclical process on many levels. On the outermost level, there are releases and development phases leading up to them. At the beginning of each development phase, we select the most important features we would like to work on. We usually have quite a few ideas in our minds, talk them through, sketch them down and… get working.
And frankly, I think getting started is not nearly as hard as getting finished.
AS: Hm. I feel like so many people are afraid to start things, though. What would you say about that?
MS: There are two things I can think of: first, is the fear of not finishing. Prospects aren’t good if you have a great idea and you know it will take plenty of your time – but at the same time you know you probably won’t have that time. People know that to work on something and finish it, they’ll have to have great staying power. Many I know don’t, and if they know, they’re afraid of starting. Because an unfinished project ruins it. The other reason I can see is the fear of their project not working out. They are afraid to put their ideas up for a test and to see if that could even work.
AS: Because of risk? I wonder what advice you’d have with respect to taking risks.
MS: It’s totally okay to take risks – I’d argue you even have to take them if you want to make any decent progress. As soon as you’re not sure about an outcome you’re talking about risk. If I change X, will then happen Y or Z? if Y is good, and Z is bad – which one is more likely to happen? Which one will have the greater (positive or negative) impact? In my definition, risk is whenever you don’t know what will happen in response to your actions.
AS: Interesting. What about good risks and bad risks? What’s the difference?
MS: I think a good risk is one where the potentially bad outcome can roughly be estimated or put within bounds, whereas a bad risk could ruin it all. Notice that this is not about the potential positive outcome, but mostly about the negative side. If there’s a lot to be lost with a decision, maybe wager for an option that is not as dramatic. Like: Don’t spend ALL your money on the lottery because potentially you’re be rich afterwards – the chance that you’ll be bankrupt is considerably higher. Don’t fool yourself too much into taking a high (aka bad) risk for a potential, but unlikely, great outcome. My approach? Always try to find out as much as possible about what might happen. If you don’t know enough about a risk, lean towards it being more dangerous that you assume. If you believe it’s different, do the maths, make assumptions, look for comparable examples and check back with people who might know better. If you then find out the potential downsides are not too severe: go for it!
AS: Ah. I never thought about it like that. Like, ‘what’s the worst case scenario if I fail’ idea. But let’s see, we’ve covered a lot. How is it running The Soulmen? What’s your day to day like?
MS: Usually my day starts by my kids waking me up, them having breakfast (I don’t eat in the morning) and most days me biking them to the daycare. I really enjoy this part of the day. Then I bike through the park into our office in the heart of the city – Leipzig is an unusually green town.
There’s such a wide spectrum of tasks coming to my desk every day, each one with a different urgency, that I struggle to organize myself more. I try to answer all emails in the morning, then get to programming, to meetings or discussions. After the office, I either pick up the kids in the afternoon or get home for dinner, then spend the evening with my wife. Regular day-to-day family life, I guess. :)
AS: Sounds idyllic. But I gotta ask. Is there anything that bothers you? That keeps you up at night?
MS: I guess what bothers me most are business decisions. Especially when the company was not doing as well as it is now, I’d always think through the options, worry how long we could sustain the respective situation, that kind of thing. Not that a situation would need to be dramatic to have me do that, I always and constantly think through how business is going. I’m always staying on top of the data, to know what is going on. I’m very concerned with sustainability and keeping it all running – we now have multiple families depending on income generated from our apps. We better not screw up.
AS: I live in Cambodia. Many are moving here now to be insta-experts and people build a lot of things very quickly, like condominiums. Yet taking time to do quality reflection on personal values seems like a ‘nice to have, but we don’t have time.’ Can you comment on this?
MS: Being a German, I grew up to be very considerate about where money should go. That’s not necessarily to be cheap, good things should cost good money, but everything needs to have a justification. I’m no fan of sinking money at all — but that’s exactly what you’re doing with ‘investing’ without thinking about a purpose and prospect.
You’ll see results of not acting with thoughtful consideration eventually, probably even soon. But I guess that’s something every newly-booming society has to learn on its own. I grew up in a part of Eastern Germany where big bad decisions were quickly made, and now 25 years later we’re slowly recovering from the negative effects. Politicians learned their lessons, but people remain skeptical, even frustrated, nevertheless. It will take quite some time until Germany’s back in a situation where the raided eastern parts are indistinguishable from the rest of the country.
AS: This is really cool and I’ve learned lot. Thank you. One thing I’d like to circle back to is when you said, ‘The biggest lesson is to just start.’ Can you talk about that a little more?
MS: We all are full of false assumptions, even if we are very experienced in the field we work in. But unless you’re building the exact same thing over and over again, there is so much that you don’t know. Contexts change, methods evolve and priorities shift. Adding just one more aspect to a project can ruin it all.
AS: Can you give me an example?
MS: Okay. Here’s one. Think of something you’ve built that uses English text only, and then realize you will have to support more languages. This design you put through hundreds of dry iterations and got to work so well might no longer fit the text, or you may even have issues finding clear enough translations so the user can understand the intent. Now you realize that you may not be able to use text at all, but must resort to icons instead. Then you also see that the previous structure no longer makes much sense, and you need to change everything… This kind of issue is why you really must start. Only if you start you will be able to uncover the sticky points that lay within. It’s not just this case, either. I can’t remember a single feature we ever added to our apps that just went through without more work. We always needed to adjust. And not starting means you waste time on something that you will not end up with anyway.
AS: Is there anything else you’d care to add?
MS: Two disclaimers: Of course you must plan ahead. Starting blindly is probably as bad as starting overly well ‘prepared’. Also: Of course you can take shortcuts and just ignore issues that come up after you get started. It works, though, if you care. You have to deeply care about the result to not only realize, but also be willing to tackle, what comes up that you know you can fix when you inevitably hit those obstacles.
—AS
This article originally appeared in our weekly ezine, S. P. A. C. E. Early support for S P A C E and Atelier S P A C E came from the sponsors listed at our crowdfunding page, here.