Ideas are easy, but finishing is (disproportionately) harder.
Our website is almost done and we’ve also just finished rebranding efforts including brand new designs (available now). The whole experience has been a lesson in seeing things through to the end.
Everyone has good ideas (just as the Winklevoss twins). As I’ve learned over the past year, that’s not difficult. You may have some good ideas, some bad ones and one or two will probably be excellent. But generally it’s something anyone can do.
So you have a bunch of good ideas, you pick one and run with it. Putting in the work to implement your idea ranks a little higher on the difficulty scale, but getting 90-95% of that killer idea is still quite achievable.
The truly difficult task in any pursuit, is finishing it. Getting to 100%
That last 5-10% is where winners are separated form everyone else. For some reason that last mile – when you can see the finishing line but aren’t quite there yet – tests you much more than whatever work took place beforehand.
I don’t quite understand it myself, but maybe Malcolm Gladwell will write a book explaining it one day.
That is when you been at it for months or maybe even years and just want to see the finishing line. When things are taken longer than expected and when the problems seem to want to crop up. If you’re going to be successful, you can’t stop and call it ‘done’ at 90% – you have to persist all the way.
It helps if you have a good team of people around you to fill in the gaps that you leave (like graphic design ability and patience!), but however you get there just remember that you’re not done until you get to 100%.