Hello, my name is Mike Beech. Welcome to my interweblog.

Every good business starts with a good idea. But I hate ideas; they’re time consuming, over-valued and it turns out—gasp—everyone has them.

They’re time consuming

Ideas are exciting, and by nature, new to you. They’re like a ribbon that unravels almost uncontrollably in your brain. They grab your attention, take you momentarily away from your drab but ultimately fulfilling and bill paying work and distract you.

I have new business ideas on a daily basis, usually around the same time in the day too. The clock rolls around to 3pm, I’ve finished all the pressing work for the day and my brain thinks it’s free to start thinking again. The next thing you know it’s Wednesday, you have emails from GoDaddy about the new domains you’ve purchased and you’re holding a slightly crumpled Certificate of Incorporation and you’ve no idea how you got there.

They’re over-valued

It turns out ideas are worth almost nothing. No one is going to buy an idea, and no good investor is going to buy into an idea either.

Everyone has them

Yes it’s true, the hardest part is realising that everyone has ideas and the same ideas at that. The difficult part is doing them better than most, and it turns out that’s really hard work! Work that most people just aren’t willing to put in. This can come as a great relief because when you do think you’re on to something you should feel free to share it safe in the knowledge that no one is going to steal it because no one else can be arsed to put the effort in to make it a success.

Learn to let go

If you think you have a good idea do not ignore it! You need to realise it’s there and remove it from your brain. The easiest way to do this is just to write it down, you’ve captured it, it’s not going to run away you can stop thinking about it for a while. I keep a spreadsheet of my ideas, good and not so good so that I know when the time is right and I need an idea I know where to come.

I could’ve just as easily quoted Ferris Bueller, but it’s always helpful to stop and think about the direction you’re moving in.

Hello, my name is Mike Beech and I’m a perfectionistaholicaphobe (not a real infliction), a very real infliction that renders the body completely useless until a task has been fully thought out and deemed perfect, every eventuality mapped out and deliberated until the margin of error is small enough that it’s even worth starting.

You see, I’ve been planning this blog post for the last 9 years.

Sufferers often find themselves creating over-complicatedness in search for elegance – while elegance is simple the road to achieving it is not. So renowned have I become, my peers have coined the practise as a “Mikism”, a way of describing the over thinking of a problem, “do you think we’re over Miking this problem, Steve?” they say without a hint of sarcasm.

There’s many ways to treat the problem but so far no known cure. Obviously, procrastination is an easy way out. And as a skill, it’s one that is easy to perfect. In many ways this blog will form part of my procrastination – surely I should be doing something more worthwhile right now. The day is constantly interrupted by easy ways out.

The Internet is a horrible place for the perfectionist to hang out – it’s large. So large in fact it’s now near impossible to have an original thought that someone hasn’t already tweeted, became the mayor of and then live blogged. It can be a daunting thought that out there, somewhere, there is someone better than you at everything – how can you hope to compete with that? In short, you can’t and you shouldn’t attempt to – if you’re aiming to be perfect you’re going to fail.

In business, there’s no time to be perfect in a fast paced world where failing fast and failing often until you stumble on success is the plan of choice. Where’s the place for the humble perfectionist who missed the boat because they’re deliberating which shade of grey between #eeeeee and #f7f7f7 represents the brand the best? Surely, you’re destined to go crazy while your bank balance slowly decreases.

So what’s the motivation for this post; I feel it’s time to reach out and put myself out there, to meet other sufferers and critics alike, let me shake your hand with the right amount of grip to show my confidence but not too much that you’re scared away – and don’t forget the eye contact! Let’s be friends.

In conclusion, is this the perfect first blog post? Far from it. Do I care? Yes, but I’m working on it.