Tonight, the late night crew at 30 Words is wrapping up our penultimate editing session of the European and South American Spanish guides. This is (at minimum) our 25th penultimate editing session.
After so many hours of minor tinkering, I am amused (and often frightened) to recall the lengthy development of our product. I remember the near de-railings, the silly thoughts, the brazen proclamations, and the wrong turns 30 Words has taken. I imagine that every young business experiences similar challenges, however, in one’s mind one’s own mistakes seem the most foolhardy, the most avoidable, and, after coming to peace with them, the most educational.
The other day, as Erin and I re-re-re-re-re-..-edited 30 Words, I pulled from my closet some of the old guide mock-ups I had built. The earliest mock-ups are particularly amusing. Some early prototypes are so packed with information that I have difficulty finding words amongst the jumbled masses. Others reflect eye-numbing color choices I made to ‘help’ differentiate between the tightly packed lines. All are laced with spelling errors, silly word choices, and faulty phrases. At one point during my review of these old guides, I had to flip open my computer to absorb the pleasing spacing and order of our guides as they appear today (sorry, shameless plug…)
Shockingly, as these old mock-up guides approached a level I now consider amateur (at best), I began contacting Bay Area printers to inform them I was nearly ready to print. ”How much would it cost to print 100 guides?” I asked. I could almost hear the laughing on the other end of the phone. (For those not familiar with printing, this is the rough equivalent of hiring an ocean freighter to transport a few hundred pairs of shoes.) I soon heard back that I was welcome to print such a quantity, but my production costs would hover around $45 per guide! Needless to say, I had a lot to learn.
As the first print of 30 Words nears, I was drawn to pull out my old mock-ups to see just how dramatically the guides had changed. These old guides are the markers of our journey, they reveal many of the challenges we faced in creating our current design. Sometimes, looking over the written or visual evidence of how much work you put into a project is calming. I still remember my high school running coach telling our team at the beginning of a season, “Find a notebook and each night write down how far and fast you ran, how long you lifted, and how many hills you climbed. The night before a big race, pull it out and slowly read through your training notes. Even if you are still nervous about the race, you will know that you are prepared for whatever challenge it brings.”
And you know what? He was right.
Pulling out these old mockups before our print was my way of looking back at the work Erin and I have poured into our project. One may feel ready to run a good race after a short warm up, however, one’s strength to finish a race is derived from the hours of work poured into the dream when nobody was looking, when the 9-5er’s have gone home to roost, and when the sun has dropped below the horizon.
Truly though, our project is only about to begin. The next phase of our journey will include many more twists and turns, distribution methods will go awry (blown gasket while trucking up I-5?), marketing techniques will flop (who knew dancing Mongolians are SO not in right now.), and sleep schedules will be tossed out the window. However, at least in this slight ‘calm’ before the storm, we can feel confident that we have put in the work to prepare for a few of these challenges.
I hope you enjoyed this short mental wandering. These blog posts will expose you to the inner workings of 30 Words; our tough decisions, the challenges of working on a small team, and the beautiful journey of starting a small business. At best, maybe these posts will inspire you to follow your own passions. My theory is that if I illustrate how many mistakes I have made you may be inspired to explore that idea, large or small, that keeps dancing in your head.
Hope all is well!
Andrew
