When I first started with the concept of the travel journal, my initial perception of how long it would take to complete was severely underestimated.

And I’ve learnt that there are a few reasons for this.

Before I start looking into them, I’d like to say that, although the process is taking longer than I anticipated, it’s actually given me extra time to plan and think about how I will launch (or pre-launch!) the product – and this may have been a step that I would have rushed had I not had the extra time to consider it.

…so getting back to it.

When I was in the process of leaving my full-time job to focus on the travel journal, I had actually done a bit of groundwork and was building momentum quite quickly. To give you an idea, I had already completed a lot of market research, sussed out what competitors were doing, identified potential gaps in the market that my journal could fill, and I also surveyed more than 100 travellers to understand how they like/would like to use a travel journal.

This was a massive piece of work but as I was doing it myself, I had full control over the outputs. Seeing how much I was able to get done whilst also managing my client work and my full-time work started to give me a sense that I might be able to progress through things much faster.

I then left my full-time job and became entirely dedicated to the travel journal, SharedNarrative and my client work. Having all this extra free time was key to being able to make progress in the months that followed.

I had mocked up various concepts of the journal myself, thought about the branding of it, the content inside, the length of it, the type of paper used, where the paper would be sourced from, additional features the journal would have etc. I even planned a trip to Bali with a side purpose of exploring various types of materials to be used as a cover for the journal. I then tested a lot of these concepts out on family, friends and travellers.

Long story short, I felt like I was making progress (which I was).

Once I got to a particular stage of where I was really happy with how the draft of the journal was looking, I then needed to seek the assistance of the professionals: content writers and designers, to name a couple.

And then I started to learn why things can take longer than expected.

When it’s just you working on something yourself, then the time required to complete it is really dependent on you. Sure, some things might take longer or shorter to do depending on your level of experience, but if you give yourself some tight deadlines, then ultimately the extra effort you put in to reach those deadlines is up to you.

When you start getting other people involved, this is when things can slow down a little. And when that happens, it’s so important to figure out what to introduce into the mix so as to not lose your momentum.

Even though the contractors I’ve used/am using are all dedicated and passionate people, I could never expect that the time required to complete something for me would be anywhere near the time I would take to do it myself. (well actually, if we’re referring to a comparable task, then it would definitely take me much longer to do as these guys are far more skilled than me in the areas that I’m seeking help)

The point I’m making though is that if we condition ourselves to expect to get everything at the speed that we can work at ourselves, we might be setting ourselves up for great disappointment. Especially if seeking the help of busy professionals. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing at all – but it is something to keep in mind, and something to prepare for.

There’s always something to get done

Time is money, as they say.

I’m actually not the biggest fan of the expression ‘time is money’, as it can devaluate non-monetary activities, set unrealistic expectations and jeopardise quality for quantity, but at the end of the day, every week that goes by without a physical product means it’ll be an extra week required before I am able to start promoting and working to generate revenue for the business.

So this is only half true – and I just realised why the other week.

Even though things have slowed down in terms of the design and getting ready for the production side of things, it doesn’t mean that I can’t be figuring out ways to launch a product without actually having one.

And this is where the pre-launch comes into play.

I’ve started researching ways to make an effective pre-launch of the product. I’ve been watching some great content on YouTube, speaking with people that have done it before, as well as reading some amazing books that have all helped to spark ideas.

I’m starting to recognise that I don’t actually need the product to be ready to make the momentum happen. While time is being spent on perfecting the design and coordinating with the manufacturer, this is a valuable moment that I could use to be investing in a pre-launch plan.

And it’s quite funny when I think about it because if nothing had taken longer than I was expecting, I really don’t think I would have had this extra time to think that I need to somehow keep the wheels turning. It’s only through this need to progress with the project that I stumbled across how an effective approach could be to prepare for a product pre-launch.

I’m still not 100% sure on all the details just yet, however, I’m getting closer to begin planning it out – if you’ve ever gone through a pre-launch yourself, or have any interesting ideas, please do share, as I’d be keen to hear from you!

A pre-launch could be a really effective way for me to get the name of the journal out there without having to physically distribute it. If I’ve got time between now and having the product ready to ship, it only makes sense to maximise that time and garner some interest before it launches. A successful pre-launch could end up leading to potential customers who are already interested in the product, so it’s definitely worth the time investment.

One of my favourite pre-launch examples is from the app “Calm”. The founder, Alex Dew, set up a website with a two-minute timer called Do Nothing For 2 Minutes. The idea was for users to go to the website, and just sit there for two minutes while staring at the sunset. If the mouse or keyboard becomes activated within the two minutes, the user would have to start again. At the end of it, a simple share feature was included, and this eventually saw Alex having 100,000 email subscribers for his app Calm before it had even hit the App Store.

Now this is a pretty unique example, however, it’s just to show that a lot can be achieved if some thought and creativity is put into it.

And by the way, you can still access Do Nothing For 2 Minutes, so have a go and try it out. See if you can last without getting distracted!