“It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to start.”
Angelia Trinidad, Founder, Passion Planner
Are you feeling a little stuck with your business?
That is a totally and completely normal place to be.
Even under the most regular of circumstances.
Consider that as a small business or side-gig owner, you are an entrepreneur and you are frequently navigating things that are new. It’s not just about starting your new business, it is about everything that goes with that process – like accounting, legal, insurance, banking, credit card processing, where to sell your product or service, business cards, your website and marketing, and more.
Each of these activities can feel like uncharted waters. And as a result, it is extraordinarily common to not be sure what to do next.
Just Start
One core piece of thinking that can help when we feel stuck is to follow the quote listed above from Angelia Trinidad, the founder of the company Passion Planner. To watch out for striving for perfection and to sometimes just start.
Angelia started her company from nothing, just an idea she had for a better planner she wanted for herself which she then started producing for others.
Her product launched in October 2013 on Kickstarter. I have no idea how I found out about that Kickstarter, but I did and I bought one of her first planners. It has been such a pleasure to watch her business develop – including some of the big challenges that can happen when you own a business.
Through it all Angelia has come back to this quote over and over again – “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to start.”
The Reason Why We Seek Perfection
There is a reason why we seek such perfection in our small businesses, and why it holds us back from starting.
The reason is that we are very, very rarely taken behind the scenes of a finished product.
Here’s what I mean by that.
Think of the things you experience on a daily basis. They likely include:
- Books
- Food from your favorite restaurant
- Television series
- Movies
- Websites where you buy things online
In each of these cases you interact with a brand or an experience that was YEARS in the making.
Every one of these situations also includes a TEAM of people. Sometimes hundreds or even thousands of people.
But how often do we really get to see once of these brands or experiences develop? When are we along for that ride?
Let’s look at movies as an example.
With movies we only ever see the final product. We know very little about how the idea came to be, of the pitch meetings to secure funding, the producers and their budgets, casting calls, script writing, the process of filming and then editing. The only way you can see behind this screen is to get involved in the movie industry (unlikely) OR to watch films on DVDs or BluRay where you can often also watch behind-the-scenes documentaries. And even then you will only see a snapshot of what took place.
I know of films that took over twenty years to make it from concept to the theater. How often do we get a sense of what that experience was like? We never see how frustrated people get. We don’t know what the budget looked like. We don’t know if the film took a full year to edit.
This example speaks to this idea where we just do not understand the process that happens behind finished products. We rarely are part of that process.
Launching a Business Can Lead to Striving for Perfection
But when you decide to start a side-gig, to launch a business … all of these processes rise up to meet you. It can be quite daunting.
Facing these processes can cause some people to want to quit. I know. I have been there. I remember one time wen I was sitting on the floor of my office sobbing. My husband found me and consoled me. Thankfully I have a streak of grit inside of me and it helps me quite a bit when I face challenges in my business. If you have started a business I know that you have that streak of grit as well. It is just part and parcel of being a small business owner.
Facing these processes can also cause business owners to strive for perfection before taking the leap to put their product on the market, to sell at an event, to launch their website.
Monitor your perfection. Watch for it. Check yourself when you see that a need for something to be perfect is actually getting in the way of moving your business forward.
I am here to tell you that it is okay to launch a website that has mistakes, that is not quite perfect. It is okay if you send out an email and the link is broken. It is okay if your brochure gets printed and there is a typo. It is okay to publish your first blog article and then not publish anything again for six months. It’s okay if your social media presence isn’t always consistent.
The key, the absolute key to it all is that you start. Not that it is perfect. Start and keep going.
Passion Planner Can Help
I use Passion Planner to help organize my life. It works for me.
Partly because I am a strong advocate for keeping a planner on paper rather than digitally. Partly because I find Passion Planners to be a perfect tool for me as a small business owner.
Each year I use more and more Passion Planners. As of the updating of this article in 2024 there are more than ten Passion Planners in use in my business and home.
Whether you order a Passion Planner or not, I encourage you to follow Angelia’s company in some way. Perhaps sign up for their email or follow their social. You can download a lot of items for free on her website (an interesting model that proves to work for many small businesses). You can also learn from blog articles on her website.
There are more good ideas at Passion Planner beyond the quote I based this article on. It’s a positive and encouraging place to be. Perhaps because Angelia truly knows what it takes to launch something new.
P.S. If you order a Passion Planner you will receive at least one sticker with a quote on it. It might be the quote at the top of this article. If you get that quote, you can stick it someplace where you see it every day!
Publication History:
- First published August 12, 2020
- Updated October 26, 2020. Additional text and tags added.