Got this ”Note to inspire” from Simon Sinek today: “It doesn’t matter when we start. It doesn’t matter where we start. All that matters is that we start.” Couldn’t agree more. But sometimes it’s hard to know when and where to start. This is when it’s helpful to adopt the concept of beta. Look at yourself and your business/career as an app, launch in beta and improve as you go! A beta version is not perfect, the aim is instead to make progress based on what you learn along the way.

 

Why not give it a try? Enter Startup Mode!

Interesting to think about that before success was measured in size. The bigger the better. True for everything from the pyramids to companies. Big can indeed be impressive, but nowadays big doesn’t equal success. Instead it is important to grow in other dimensions. To stay passionate, curious, resilient, nimble… To stay in startup mode.

 

Big can still be a consequence, but it’s not the aim. The aim is to constantly develop.

One important ingredient to succeed as an entrepreneur, or any other professional, permanent betais to commit to continuous growth – or as we like to call it: to be in permanent beta. Your beta versions help you easily make progress and each beta version make you more and more unique. It is because of your uniqueness people choose to work with you and it is because of your uniqueness you’ll get famous. And as you are unique, why should you read the same book as everyone else? Of course you should have your unique guide to the future of entrepreneurship and work-life. #permanentbeta #tailormadebookinprogress

 

Learn more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A plan turns your beliefs into action, which is the key to make change. But a plan also risks limiting your options. Too rigorous planning with too long time perspective actually hinders you from seeing the opportunities around you. Plan no longer than two steps ahead. Two steps ahead to make sure your next move maximize the opportunities for the step after. Make sure your plan has room for flexibility, iteration and randomness. Commit to permanent beta, to continuous growth. Stay in Startup Mode!

More and more seems to agree that a startup mindset is essential for success. We all need to nurture our entrepreneurial minds! Today, all of us act in information-poor, resource-constrained and time-compressed surroundings – just as startups always have.

 

We need to use our creativity, be courageous enough to take on a certain amount of risk and commit to permanent beta. If innovation before was like “Ready, aim, fire”, innovation today is “Aim, fire, aim, fire, aim, fire…” More important than ever to Stay in Startup Mode!  

One of my major reasons for running my own business is to be able to work where I want, when I want and with whom I want. This gives me freedom to explore and develop and constantly innovate myself, my concepts, my company and the way I do business. I continuously learn from my amazing clients and partners who help me launch an updated beta version of myself every day. I become more and more me, and more and more unique. So does my business. My firm belief is that that’s what makes people wanna work with me.

 

The same goes for you.

You’ve probably heard about Micael Dahlén’s Nextopia. But have you really thought about what it means for business and work-life? Instead of thinking we’re never better than our latest project, it’s time to start thinking we’re never better than our next project. It’s all about kicking off the right expectations. To do so, we need to constantly reinvent ourselves and our businesses. We need to launch new, updated beta versions every day.

 

Hard? Maybe. But if you’ve found that thing that you’re so interested in, inspired by and good at that it’s almost an obsession, it’s most of all fun 🙂

Lots of people, including me, talk about the importance of being passionate about what you do. I heard the other day that it might be time to change “passion” to “obsession”. We need to find something so interesting that we get obsessed with it. Something that we’re eager to learn more about and where we improve effortlessly – because we think it’s both inspiring and fun. All other things should end up on you “to don’t”-list.

 

Stay curious, Stay in Startup Mode!

Together with Per Frykman, I’m happy to introduce our latest project:permanent beta

A book that will keep reinventing itself and be in permanent beta version. Because that’s the only reliable strategy in today’s ever-changing world; to constantly reinvent yourself and your business and find new ways to do things even better. You simply need to enter and stay in startup mode. This will build your reputation, your most valuable asset, and your reputation kicks off the crucial expectations that are what we actually buy in the expectations economy. That’s why it is so important to get famous for what you haven’t done…yet.

 

Our ambition is to write the world’s first fully tailor made book, where you choose the content to get your personalized hands-on guide to the future of entrepreneurship and work-life.

As an entrepreneur you know the importance of moving quickly and be flexible. There’s simply no time for overthinking. We need to enter and stay in startup mode. This can be kind of hard if you are a perfectionist, like me. Though, I always talk about making progress not perfection. Here’s one example of how I overcame perfection.

 

Some years ago I misspelled a word in a tweet (this was when I tweeted in Swedish, my native language – nowadays I probably misspell and write strange grammar all the time 😉 ) That small misspelling thing kept me awake at night. Sounds crazy right? I realized it actually was. So, I decided to start misspelling by purpose. Of course not everything all the time, but to sneak in some small mistakes once in a while. And you know what happened? Nothing. No-one thought I was less competent or serious.

 

On the other hand, what did happened was that I started writing a lot – on my blog, on Twitter and on LinkedIn – and people liked what I wrote. Writing helps me get clearer and clearer about my message and it helps me launch better and better beta versions of myself.

 

No guarantees the same method will work for you, but I encourage you to think about what tiny step you can take to challenge your inner perfectionist.

 

Nowadays, I’m much better on taking action and focus on progress rather than perfection. Though, there’s still a small perfecitonist inside 🙂