This week's idea
From Walt Disney:
"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."
Most brands aren't stuck because they lack good ideas. They're stuck because they won't ship them.
Useful takeaways
Speed is a competitive advantage. While others are refining, you're learning.
Imperfect action beats perfect planning. The market teaches faster than any deck.
Shipping creates opportunities you can't predict. Doors open because you're in motion.
Where people get this wrong
Most people read "quit talking and begin doing" and think it means "rush everything out with no strategy." So they launch half-baked campaigns with no plan, no positioning, and no follow-through.
That's not the lesson.
I'm not saying ship garbage. I'm saying clarity comes from market feedback, not internal debates.
There's a difference between launching without a plan and launching before the plan is perfect.
Weeks go into decks. Months go into "refining the strategy."
Meanwhile, nothing is live. Nothing is learning. Nothing is growing.
The brands that win aren't the ones with the best strategy on paper. They're the ones who ship, learn, and iterate faster than everyone else.
How I’ve applied it
I've stopped waiting for perfect conditions to start things. When I have an idea that feels directionally right, I build the minimum version and launch it. Then I let the market tell me if it's working.
The feedback loop from doing is faster and more honest than any amount of internal planning.
Speed is the strategy.
Storytime
In January 2021, I started a podcast called "Sh*t. What Now?"
The idea was simple: interview people at the top of the advertising industry and show young people how to break in.
I was not ready. I didn't have professional equipment. I'd never edited audio before. I had no audience.
But I shipped it anyway.
Twenty-four episodes later, I'd interviewed Tom Goodwin, Rose Herceg, Julian Cole, and others I'd admired for years. My network exploded. People I didn't know started reaching out, listeners who'd shared the show, followed along, cheered me on.
I became a finalist for 30 Under 30. Got interviews I wouldn't have landed otherwise. And at the end of the year, I got into the Marketing Academy.
The podcast got over 3,000 downloads, and a few people told me it helped them get a job. Mission complete.
I can't even watch those early episodes now. They're rough. The audio quality is inconsistent. Some of my questions were clunky. I was learning in public.
But I'm so glad I didn't wait.
If I'd spent six months planning the "perfect" podcast with better branding, professional production, and a waitlist strategy, I probably never would have launched it. And none of those doors would have opened.
Shipping it created opportunities I couldn't have predicted.
That's what I see brands missing. They spend six months doing busy work, refining decks, optimising plans. Meanwhile, they're out of market. Learning nothing. Testing nothing.
Surely something (even imperfect) is better than nothing.
Speed is a strategy, and it compounds faster than perfection ever will.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
Murph