Mastering the art of procrastination: My 9-month journey of delaying a 30 min task

It took me 9 months to write 579 words and hit send. Fun fact - more than 11 million of kids were conceived, carried to term and came out screaming during that time.

Kinda ironic. I’m preaching to startups about launching fast while I’m sitting here, postponing a tiny newsletter for so long.

Why? Probably similar reasons to why you keep putting off things.

1. Overthinking (has to be perfect)

2. Too busy. Turns out helping other founders build their dreams doesn’t leave much room for executing on my own ideas

3. Imposter syndrome (Yes I still have that and yes my therapist says it’s normal)

And I wasn’t even sure I can still write. I practically cannot live without AI tools anymore (I promise, all of the newsletters will be written with my own not so fancy words).

Something really shitty had to happen to break my 1-year long writers block.

Maybe I’ll share that one day too, but let’s start with how you can avoid being such a procrastinator as I can certainly be, and get your baby out there much sooner:

1. Just launch, iterate later

   Launch, get told it’s shit, and make it less shitty. Repeat until it’s not shit anymore. You’ll see you’re first assumptions are most likely way off, and people generally like telling you what they don’t like about it.

2. Build something 10 people will love enough to stalk you

   I wasn’t trying to build a newsletter for the whole internet. I wanted to speak to you, the founders grinding it out and figuring out as you go. If you’re reading this and you feel like I’m speaking to you directly - mission accomplished. Don’t aim to please everyone. Just 10 people that will be obsessed with it. Trust me, it will grow from there. (But seriously, don’t stalk me though)

3. Make it enjoyable for yourself or you won’t stick with it

   If it means a lot to you, you’ll do it. If you don’t, you’ll burn out even faster. It’ll become a chore. Startups (and newsletters) are long games.

   This newsletter is practically an overdue therapy session masquerading as value for founders (maybe I’ll finally cancel my Betterhelp subscription and get some real friends I’m not paying to listen to me). And guess what - writing it was fun. Whatever you build - make sure the process of building excites you, and not just the outcome.

4. Set some goals and keep it simple - whatever moves the needle

   For this newsletter my goal was to connect with you, get just one reply and not get a 50% unsubscribe rate. If I reach that tiny goal, I’ll have a 10x motivation to write the next one. Find the one thing that you want to nail first, one tiny confirmation that you’re on the right track, and go from there.

Now tell me about you. What’s the thing you’ve been putting off? What are you building right now? What is your current biggest challenge?

Start typing and shoot me an email to valentina@basicpitch.vc. I’ve got coffee and good vibes ready. ☕️ 

So… What can you expect if you stick around?

Tips, and stories about building, scaling and funding startups, pitch deck breakdowns, founder interviews, and random shower thoughts (told you this is my therapy).

Until next time,

Your basicpitch, Valentina

PS: If this newsletter nudged you to make progress on something today, forward it to someone who also needs to be kicked in the butt or just reply with “Got it”. Small wins count too!