- Who are you trying to please?
- Are you trying to make a living, make a difference, or leave a
legacy? - How will the world be different when you've succeeded?
- Is it more important to add new customers or to increase your
interactions with existing ones? - Do you want a team? How big? (I know, that's two questions)
- Would you rather have an open-ended project that's never done, or
one where you hit natural end points? (How high is high enough?) - Are you prepared to actively sell your stuff, or are you expecting
that buyers will walk in the door and ask for it? - Which: to invent a category or to be just like Bob/Sue, but better?
- If you take someone else's investment, are you prepared to sell out
to pay it back? - Are you done personally growing, or is this project going to force
you to change and develop yourself? - Choose: teach and lead and challenge your customers, or do what they
ask… - How long can you wait before it feels as though you're succeeding?
- Is perfect important? (Do you feel the need to fail privately, not
in public?) - Do you want your customers to know each other (a tribe) or is it
better they be anonymous and separate? - How close to failure, wipe out and humiliation are you willing to
fly? (And while we're on the topic, how open to criticism are you
willing to be?) - What does busy look like?
In my experience, people skip all of these questions and ask instead:
"What can I do that will be sure to work?" The problem, of course, is
that there is no sure, and even worse, that you and I have no
agreement at all on what it means for something to work.
the early years 