Kitces & Carl Ep 148: Making It Easier To Get Started By NOT Building In Public And Focusing On Version 0 Instead

***Editor's Note: Can't get enough of Kitces & Carl? Neither can we, which is why we've released it as a podcast as well! Check it out on all the usual podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts (iTunes), Spotify, and Stitcher.

Show Notes

• Lean Startup by Eric Ries
• Free Yourself Of Your Harshest Critic And Plow Ahead (You're Fired) – NYT column by Carl Richards
• S.O.B. (Official) – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats:
• Start Close In – David Whyte
• fpPathfinder
• Why Aren't Checklists A Financial Planning Standard?
• The Checklist Manfiesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

Kitces & Carl Transcript

Carl: Well, hello, Michael Kitces. So good to see you.

Michael: It's good to see you. It's good to see you. How are you doing today?

Carl: Yeah, things are great. Yeah, really, really, really good. Our daughter just started med school, day 4, calls me and says, "I took the spine out of a cadaver." Day 4. And I was, "I don't need to know any more details, please. Thank you very much."

Michael: Wow.

Carl: I know. She said she learned more in the first 4 days than she had in, I think she said, 4 years of anatomy class. So anyway, how about that?

Michael: There's nothing like getting to the point where you learn anatomy class because you literally start dissecting human cadavers. That'll do it.

Carl: So crazy. So anyway, that's the latest update.

Michael: Very cool. Very cool.

Carl: Yeah.

Michael: So, what did you want to dig into today?

How To "Just Get Started" When You're Afraid To Take The First Step [00:57]

Carl: We've been holding these retreats at my house with 12...well, it's actually everyone. There's been 12 advisors. And they come sort of with a puzzle they're trying to solve. And we quickly get...after all the tactics are out of the way, we quickly get to this place where they're just scared to take the next step. And this could be about anything. This could be about, "I want to write a book," "I want to create a podcast," "I want to start a new firm," "I want to change the way I do my first meeting," whatever it is, "I want to spend more time with my family." There's all these...it doesn't really matter what it is. We get to, okay, let's walk through the tactics, and then there's still this place where, "Look, I'm just scared."

And I was asked today, what do you do? It comes up with these retreats. What do you do when you're just scared to take the next step? And so I wanted to walk you through this concept and just talk a bit about it. It's been incredibly helpful for me. I started doing it...I don't even really know why. It was years and years ago, I started labeling things Version 0. So I would say, maybe a draft of the book or maybe I'd record a video for a course, or something, and I would just label it Version 0. And I was like, it feels so lightweight. It feels like...and it's different than rough draft, because rough draft implies nobody is ever going to see it. Version 0 is, "I'm going to just release this."

So the story I was telling myself was...so I'll give you an example. We did this series of videos once, and it was going to be something where you paid a couple of hundred bucks and you got this series of videos. And I wasn't sure about the production quality, and I didn't know about the lights. And I was getting all up in my head. I was going to try to find somebody to hire, "I need to get a guy over here to do the lights, and I need to buy a new camera." I was doing all the things that we all do. And I was, "What if you just sat down and recorded Version 0? Because you can always redo them." That's what I told myself. I was, "You can always..." In fact, just plan on redoing them. We released them, and close to 2,000 people have gone through that experience. And we've never re-recorded them. I just never did, because they were fine.

And so I wanted to just talk a little about this, the benefit of the idea of Version 0, and how do you approach the same problem when you're, "I've got a thing. It's going to go out in the world. You've got lots of practice at it. I've had lots of practice at it. So it's not quite as scary as it used to be, but it still is scary." So, how do you think about when something is good enough to get out there, and how could Version 0 be helpful for you?

Michael: I have a lot of resonance to this model, this framework that you're putting forth, although I think about it slightly differently, or I did it, and 2,000 people came. It freaks me out a little because, to me, the whole context is I'm afraid I'm going to go do it, and then it's going to suck, and everybody's going to see that it sucks, and then I'll be all embarrassed that it was sucky, right? That's usually the version where the fear comes from, why I don't want to write the book or change up what I do with my clients, or whatever the thing is. And so there are a few things that are running through my head.

One, there is this model out there that I ultimately think of as a model around personal accountability to follow through, which is something to the effect of, if you want to build something, build in public. Because once you've committed to do it publicly, basically, the sheer mortification of saying you were going to do it publicly and then not following through on it is so horrific that, a lot of the times, we just commit to do something that we build in public, then everybody's going to...we're going to get it done because we don't want to flip flop and go back on our word after we started the thing publicly. And I want to knock the, I was going to say, ‘build in public' movement. I don't know that it's a movement, but just I see a lot of people follow the approach. If it works for you, it works for you. Kudos to you. I actually struggle with that mightily, not unlike the context of what you're talking about or what happens when you launch an initial Version 0, which is when you launch it at the beginning, the truth is nobody notices, nobody knows, basically nobody cares.

Carl: Nobody sees it.

Michael: I think back to the early days when I was launching our blog platform and our newsletter. Nobody was reading it. In fact, originally, Nerd's Eye View was a blog that launched in 2008, and I felt like nobody was reading it. So I installed Google Analytics, actually proved that no one was reading it. So I shut it down for 2 years because I couldn't figure out how to get anybody to actually notice the thing that I was doing. The fear was I'm going to write, and I'm not going to be that good at it, and everyone's going to criticize me. And then I actually wrote it and turned out literally not a soul. I realized that I was doing this, and the traffic and readership was non-existent. So then I shut it down because I said, "Well, it's not even worth the time and trouble to do it because no one's seeing it."

Carl: Right.

Michael: But there's a phenomenon. It's sort of a version of I think just what happens for a lot of us where we're afraid to do a lot of things in public because I want to see this awkward. I don't want to be embarrassed. A lot of us put this on ourselves as teenagers. Some of us, like me, carry it for our entire lives. And the truth for almost all of it is no one is looking at you as much as you think. Everyone is looking at you when you're all embarrassed about whatever that social situation is. And then it happens anyways, and then nobody notices the thing. Not that many people are looking.

And so, to me, I guess, an indirect version of what you're expressing, what I found is most of us, unless you go through the trouble of consciously trying to build in public, putting out there, you're making the thing, "Everybody, look at me while I make the thing," and then you have to go, "Oh, my goodness, I hope it really turns out to be good now that I made this big audience around myself." Most of the time that you try stuff and you launch stuff and you put it out there, almost no one is noticing, right?

Remember how hard it was to get your first few clients? That's because when you launched your firm, the problem wasn't that you weren't that good yet. The problem was literally no one noticed. Because they're just busy with their own lives, and they're not checking out what you're doing all day long. That's why we have to market our backsides off in the first couple of years, trying to get anybody to work with us. Because nobody's really looking until you make them look. That's why we have to market and sell and do the things that we do.

So the starting step, to me, I guess, in the purest sense is just take it down a notch. Not that many people are looking. In fact, you probably have to work hard to get anybody to notice the thing that you're doing or creating or building in the first place. So just put something out there. Hardly anyone besides maybe your parents and your siblings and a couple of really close friends are likely to notice anyways because you asked them to look and give you some-0SZXAZ feedback. And that's all you need to start the process of getting something out there and getting a little bit of feedback. And if it turns out good, sell it to the next 2,000 people or the next 1,997 people after the first 3 that get Version 0. But if it turns out it's good, you can sell it to the next 1,997 people. And if it turns out it's not good, no one but the first 3 are ever going to know. And 3 is not that many.

Carl: Yes. Do you view that? I've talked a lot about this exact idea. I always say, my mom and my sister were the only ones that were reading Behavior Gap. And that was actually true for a long time. I found...

Michael: My dad and my study group were the only people who were the original...

Carl: I found Seth Godin's website traffic chart once. I've since tried to find it again, and I just can't find it. But it was nothing for a very long time, right? So nobody escapes this. I shouldn't say nobody. Virtually nobody escapes this idea that, at first, nobody is paying attention.

Michael: Right, yeah.

Carl: So you're painting that as good news.

Michael: It's the whole overnight successes take 15 years, and no one sees how sucky they are for the first time.

Carl: Yeah. So you're painting that as good news.

Michael: Yeah. If you're going to have some anxiety about what you're putting out there and you don't want to be embarrassed, good news. Hardly anyone's going to notice anyways. And if it turns out to be good, you might get some word of mouth, and then a few people actually will show up. And at that point, that's fine.

Carl: And I think the other way to view that, too, is that, as you get better, because if you keep doing it, because there can be...sometimes I've had people get unmotivated by that, they're, "Well, then, what's the point?" And so I think there's 2 things to say about what's the point. Number 1, if I think you can create these projects, whatever it is, content creation, relationships, whatever it is, you can create these projects that the benefit is to you. For instance, writing a daily blog. I remember Seth saying he didn't care if anybody read it because it was metacognition, the benefit to him. My daily Behavior Gap radio I do every day, I did episode 1,129 today, I do it every weekday, or I release it every weekday, sometimes I batch the recordings, but I release it every weekday, the benefit is to me. And so if you do the project in a way, that's number 1.

Number 2 is that, as you keep doing it, the only way to get to the exciting part of the attention curve, it's just like the compound interest curve, there's no way. We're all looking for shortcuts to get to the exciting part. There's no shortcut. You've got to go through the boring part. The good news is you can map over that same attention curve. You can map, generally, you can map quality. As this thing catches on, as more people know about the quality of your work, as more people know about the quality of your writing, whatever the project is, don't over-index on the content creation thing just because we use those examples, but whatever that is, you're getting better at it. And as more people show up, good news, you're a little better. And I think that's another way to view that.

And I'm just trying. Version 0 is just purely an attempt to remove some of that pressure. It's funny, in the conversation we had earlier about Version 0, in the workshop, I was saying, the voice I say to myself is, "Hey, bro, it's just Version 0. Relax, it's just Version 0." If you need to, which is implying to me, I can go back and redo it. Right? And what's interesting is I almost never have to because it ends up being good enough.

One last story. Ramit. I remember I was on a walk with Ramit Sethi in New York… jeez, man, it must have been a decade ago now. And one of the things I always loved about Ramit, there's lots. Look, we can all have bones to pick about some of the things Ramit says about advisors and whatever, but you can't fault the quality of his business and the work he does and the energy he puts in, and he's trying to change people's lives, and he's probably changed a lot of people's lives. I remember saying to him, "One of the things I love about your content is the production quality." And he just laughed and said, "You are the first person to ever say that." He's like, "Nobody actually cares."

Now, I think that's not entirely true. People do care. You just don't hear about it very often. You hear about it if it's bad. You just don't hear about it if it's good.

Michael: Yeah, I think of it as a hygiene factor. If it's bad, you really notice, but you don't really get more credit because it's good.

Carl: Yeah, I think that's true. But his point is, so often, the place to hide is this has got to be good. The content, the production's got to be good. My advice has got to be good. I can't handle new clients. I've got to be good. No, you just get in and start doing the work. And that's how you become good.

Let The Audience (Not The Creator) Be The Judge Of Relevance and Quality [14:11]

Michael: So one other thought I've got on this from my end, I want to turn a couple of questions back to you, the corollary that I find to this. So I guess you're kind of you put forth a lot of version 0s, and then it turned out they were fine, you didn't have to change them. I find my version 0s often get revamped. It does not work the way I expected or as well as I expected. From my end, good news, not very many people actually saw it, because I was just kind of putting it out there as an experiment to see what kind of uptake or traction it would get. Hardly anyone saw it. If they like it, more will share it. If they don't, I just could say, "You just kind of walk that back and work on that a little bit more."

But what I found in that process is that I'm a pretty good judge of sort of generally what I think would be of interest, whether that's content we create in the platform context, services, and stuff that we've rolled out to clients over the years. And I feel like almost no one is, having lived the various versions of the entrepreneurial journey, no one is very good at masterminding exactly what the end client wants. So as I think of...if you think of it on a spectrum from 0% completely wrong to 100% completely perfect of what the client wants, we might be pretty good at the first 80%. Almost no one is any good at the last 20%. Because what we do, what almost all of us do as entrepreneurs and business owners, we build what we would want.

Carl: Right. Right.

Michael: I wouldn't buy it if it wasn't this or that or have this or attach that or include this offering, or whatever it is. And so we basically build for ourselves, then we go and see whether anybody else wants to buy it. And the reality is most of us underestimate a little bit how wonderfully unique and special we are. And it turns out people might kind of like what you like but almost never exactly the way that you like it. And so the other reason why I'm a fan of this framework, in the entrepreneurial context, this is often the lean startup, minimum viable product approach, if you read folks like Eric Ries, is just, I believe, this is as many businesses and things I've launched that had been successful over the years, I still am routinely amazed at things we do that do not go nearly as well as I thought. Maybe they do okay, maybe they even flop, and I really thought it was going to be a sure hit.

And then this other thing we do that is just, I think, would be helpful to the people we serve when we put it out there, that's what you guys get all excited about? That's the thing? Okay, I stand corrected. And one of the hardest things was just getting over this idea of I don't actually have to figure all of it out. I just got to get reasonably close and then put Version 0, to use your term, and then put Version 0 out of the marketplace and let clients tell me if they actually like it or what they would like differently. Because there comes a point where, if I keep iterating on it, I'm past the "Is it good enough to figure out whether anyone likes it?" and I'm just making it better for me. And that really only helps me and not anybody else that I'm trying to actually serve.

Carl: Totally. Can I comment on that for a minute?

Michael: Yeah, please.

Carl: This is such a universal principle. I wrote one of the Times columns was about this. It was called "You're Fired."

Michael: You're fired?

Carl: Yeah. And I actually did it in this exact workshop I was referencing when this conversation came up. It was an advisor who had started a podcast, and she was trying to release season 2, but she'd been working on season 2 for 3 months. And she was, "I think I'm finally ready to release it. How do I know?" And then, let me just tell you one more story.

I was at a songwriter's workshop this weekend, and Nathaniel Rateliff, who's become a thing, he talked about his song has just been a runaway hit, "S.O.B." He's, "I don't even know if I like it." It's a very real song. It's a very real song. And he's, "I loved it," but he's, "But you better believe I got it out there." And I refer to that as ‘tailwind'. I may not be very good at knowing exactly which way the wind is blowing, but once I notice a tailwind, I'm pretty good at noticing, "Wow, this is..." And the tailwind often shows up in the form of energy and people. So you do a thing.

And so the advisor that was trying to decide to release a podcast, I explained to her, "You're fired from the job of deciding if it's ready or not. Because think about, you are literally the worst person on the planet to have that job, to decide if your own work is good, to decide if people are going to find your work valuable. You're the worst person." Nathaniel Rateliff is the worst person. Now, there's a fine line here, and you pointed out the minimum viable product. There's a fine line between caring about your craft and figuring out the boundary conditions of these two of just release it, Version 0, minimum viable product, ship it, and care about the craft. Stop putting crap out in the world. The boundary conditions of those 2, where the line is, I don't know. I think it's for all of us to determine. That's called art.

But I think we do over-index, and I think it's really helpful to fire yourself. Pack your bags and get out. Your job is not to decide whether it's good enough. Your job is to create it to some standard, and I would argue, lower those standards. Lower those standards a little bit. Some standard, get it out there, and then react, and decide whether you like the feedback and want to change it or whether you want to make it true. That's the other thing I think people spend too much time on is trying to find the truth versus making something true.

I don't think Steve Jobs spent, to use a way cliché example, sorry for even bringing it up, but I don't think he spent much time trying to find the truth about what people wanted in a music player or in a phone. Because now, we're at the point where a lot of people, not only we, not remember the radio, you won't remember the record, you won't remember the 8-track, you won't remember the CD, you may not even remember the iPod. But I don't think he spent a lot of time deciding whether people wanted a flywheel to figure out how to listen to it. I think he made it true. And so I think...but those lines are very interesting. There's no sharp line.

So I love just firing myself. Wait, your job is to create stuff up to the standard. Just lower that standard, create it, put it in the world. Because especially for this audience, right, the people need what you're talking about. Whether it's a better first meeting or a short book or a podcast, people need it. And if you're going to, it's not going to do anybody any good sitting on the shelf.

Scaling Action Around "Just The Next Step" In Order To Build Momentum [22:00]

Michael: So I don't know if I'm reading into your earlier examples too literally. So call me on it if this isn't good to call back, but I'm struck when you were talking at the beginning about the retreats that you were holding and the kinds of challenges where advisors were coming out. We ask about the tactics, and then you get the tactics, and then you still can't do it because it becomes clear it's not actually the tactics. We're just sort of scared to take the next step. And so you had given some examples. I think someone was, "I want to write a book," or try changing up my meetings. But you had some start a new firm, spend more time with my family. Are there Version 0 steps for this, or are we talking about something that's really mostly a content?

Carl: No, it's a great question, and it's really, really important to understand this. This is something I...I'm not very good at a lot of things, but one thing I've worked really hard at trying to be good at is I call it ‘experiment design'. And it's really designing version 0s. And for everything, it's, "Look, I would like to have a little bit of better relationship with," let's say that you'd like to have a little bit better relationship with your son. Well, okay. Well, we could go on a trip, or we could talk every week, or I could write him a letter every day. I could even... That's 0 to 1,000. "What's 0 to 1?" to use another tech term, right? What's Version 0 of that? What's the smallest example?

"I think I want to retire with $5 million on a sailboat," to use a different example with clients. Clients come in, they've got these ideas. $5 million on a sailboat, 55 – all 5s – 5 million on a 55-foot sailboat. It's a big sailboat. Have you been on a boat before? What's Version 0 of that? What if we just went out for an hour? And I think the reason it's so much more fun to think about version 200 going 0 to 1,000 because this comes up in business scale. The more I can think about scale, the less I actually have to do anything.

And so I think putting yourself on the hook for the next smallest step, David Whyte calls it the step close in, the step you don't want to take. David Whyte, the Irish poet. And I think that gets really scary because it's super intimate. It's the next very next step. It's not step number 2. It's not step number 3. It's often really simple, and anytime anything is really simple, again, from one of David Whyte's poems, it's easy to let other people smother it. And so I think this applies to the work we do with clients. It applies to relationships. What's the smallest? I find myself doing this all the time with my kids, my adult kids all the time, and they do it to me too, "Wait, wait, wait… let's back up. What's the next smallest step?"

So I think it applies to everything. And there's some really great research, decision-making framework, all the stuff around complexity theory, complex adaptive systems, how to navigate conditions of irreducible uncertainty. All of them point back to the same thing, solve for the next local optimum, what's the next smallest step, so BJ Fogg's work on tiny habits, all that stuff.

Michael: There's an irony to me in this just as I think about it. To me, it takes me back to the scary place.

Carl: Why? Tell me why.

Michael: The big step with the big goal is risky, which makes it easy to justify why I'm not going to do it.

Carl: Oh, interesting, yeah.

Michael: Because it's risky. There's really no stinking excuse for taking this, what did you say, the small step close in. It's not that hard. I'm going to have to really...if you make me do that, I'm going to have to actually do this.

Carl: Let me just really quickly. That's super smart. Often, people talk about the big step not being quite as scary because if it fails, there's a million other things to blame, right? There's all these big other variables. The next smallest step, there's only 1 thing. For instance, really, let's just pretend like you have a strange relationship with your mother or your father, and you're thinking about therapy. How scary is it if somebody says to you, "Pick up the phone," you know what I mean? "Call." That gets so intimate so quick. I can feel that so quick.

Michael: Right? It gets really real all of a sudden. I can plan all the stuff that I may or may not do or have an excuse to talk out of. But, well, if I just do that, then she might actually pick up the phone. And now we're talking.

Carl: Yeah. And you're just, "What are we going to talk? Well, how's the weather?" And then hang up. 5 minutes, just pick up the phone. 5 minutes. 3 minutes. Just check.

Michael: You haven't talked in years. It can't really be worse.

Carl: Yeah. And that's the other crazy thing is that the more of that, that becomes these big walls that are built between us and the thing we want to do. And the more bricks you put on the wall, the harder it is to do. And the reality is the action is almost always micro-scary, micro-small, micro-action. Pick up the phone. Just to use an example. So I think you're right.

And yeah, the idea of it being really risky, I hadn't actually thought about that idea that, okay, the big thing is really risky so, therefore, I can justify not doing it. I got to do more research. I got to think more. I got to build more spreadsheets. I got to Kitces it to death. We've started using you as a verb around here.

Michael: Cool. Not the way I would have envisioned it, but sure, we'll roll with it. But I think, for me, so ultimately, that kind of comes down to some version of fear of failure. At least as I interpret it, the small step is scarier because I really have to actually do it. There's not much of an excuse not to. And as you pointed out, the only one to blame on a failed small step is me. So now, fear of failure is right there in front of my face, which, to me, at least comes back to and this is why, at least for me, I'm not particularly a fan of building in public, I'm going to build my really, really, really small experiment over here. And you know what, if it fails, there's 3 people who are ever going to see it and know. And if it works, then we'll continue. We'll take the next step. Maybe it gets bigger or maybe it gets amplified. I'll try again.

Creating Safe-To-Fail (Not Fail-Safe) Points To Experiment [29:21]

Carl: But that's no longer... Michael, I want to ask you a question because I'm curious. That's no longer true for you, not the scary part but the part where you said almost nobody will see it. Now, people will see it. How has it changed for you? You're still building, you're still doing things more than ever. How have you dealt with the idea that now lots of people will see it when you do it? Has the fear gone away?

Michael: So I'd answer it in 2 ways. One, no, fear doesn't go away.

Carl: Yeah.

Michael: I think, so in some cases, I'm still pretty good at figuring out smaller stakes, experiments, and ways to try things before I do the bigger version that may be scarier and/or more visible failure. There was a point for years when I was thinking about businesses that I might want to launch. I would do articles about them on the blog just about the topic. Because I'm not launching a whole business, taking out business partners, putting capital risks. I wrote an article about the thing. And you know what, if a zillion people click on the thing, then maybe there's actual real interest and need.

We launched fpPathfinder to put flow charts and checklists out there for financial advisors because I wrote an article on flow charts and checklists. And it was 1 of our top 3 trafficked articles for the year. When I wrote it, I went, "Oh, my gosh, there's actually a lot of interest in this." I didn't go launch a business and create a product and pricing and marketing and do all the stuff it takes to launch, and then go, "I really hope this is going to work." I spent a few hours. I wrote an article about how I thought it was strange that Atul Gawande did his book about checklists for doctors and pilots, and we don't have any as financial advisors. And isn't that kind of weird? Maybe we should.

Carl: Yeah, yeah.

Michael: So I had a small version to do. Yes, it was visible as an article, but I didn't visibly entrepreneur myself to say, "I'm launching a business. I hope this one works." I found a really small-scale example version of it. Relative to a business, that was a Version 0.

Carl: Exactly right. That's exactly right.

Michael: And when it worked out okay, then and only then did I take the next step. So if someone wants to have fun, look through the blog archives, you can try to figure out how many businesses I've thought about that didn't turn out to businesses because not very many people clicked on the article either. And I took that as a sign.

Carl: Yeah. Yeah, in the literature, and I think Jennifer Garvey Berger first pointed me to this, is you'd call that, instead of thinking fail-safe, thinking safe-to-fail. So instead of designing fail-safe experiments, design safe-to-fail experiments. And so all you're doing there, it was totally safe to fail. It's the article. And nobody would even know that you...nobody would even define it as failure. It would just be, "Oh, not very many people read that," right? Super, super smart. And you could apply that exact same thing to client relationships. Instead of going on a cruise with your family that you haven't seen for 2 months, maybe you should call them.

Michael: Yeah.

Carl: And again, the cruise with your family you haven't seen for 2 months or 2 years is starting the business with capital partners, calling them as you're writing the blog post, right? And so I just think, if you can always pull it back, pull it back, pull it back, what's it called, David Whyte? It's called "Start Close In," and that, first, take the first step, not the second, not the third, and the bottom of the first stanza said something, the step that you don't want to take, right? That, to me, we're just trying to operationalize that idea. It's a really good experiment design.

Michael: Very cool. Well, thank you, Carl. Appreciate your discussion.

Carl: Cheers, Michael. Super fun.

Michael: Thank you.

Carl: Yep.