The rubber stamp was embarrassing.
When we couldn’t afford printed packaging for Vedikaura’s early orders, we used a rubber stamp on a plain box. It was functional. It was not what I wanted the brand to look like. I was aware of the gap between what we had and what I imagined Vedikaura being.
I’m glad we used the rubber stamp. Because the alternative to the rubber stamp was not starting until the printed packaging was ready. And not starting was the thing I was most afraid of.
Starting small is not a philosophical position I had going into this. It’s a conclusion I arrived at by watching what happened when we started imperfectly. The first orders went out in plain boxes with a stamp. The customers were happy. The products were right. The packaging was modest. Nobody left a review about the packaging.
The thing I was anxious about didn’t matter the way I thought it would.
This has happened enough times now that I’m starting to trust it as a pattern. The thing that feels like it needs to be perfect before you can begin — the logo, the website, the photography, the follower count, the product range — is almost never the thing the customer actually cares about in the early stages. What they care about is whether the product is good and whether they were treated well.
Those things you can do from day one. The rest can follow.
I apply this to everything now. The personal brand content that doesn’t have professional lighting. The blog posts that exist before I’ve figured out exactly what this blog is. The LinkedIn presence built in small increments rather than announced with a perfectly designed identity.
Small and started beats large and waiting every time I’ve compared them.
What are you not starting because you’re waiting for a version of it that’s more ready than what you have now?