No matter how good you think your plan is, it will most likely take longer than you planned.
Entrepreneurs and business owners especially learn quickly that if they don’t have patience, life will be way too stressful to be enjoyable. The faster you realize that your timelines almost never work out, the less stress you will encounter when things don’t go exactly according to plan.
Whenever you have complete control over a venture or project within a venture, the capital to get it off the ground, the ability to hire good staff, etc. then you tend to be able to get things done in the time you planned. When you don’t, when you are dependent on raising capital to get going or developing a prototype to begin selling, expect delays.
It is not a sign of failure to take a little longer to get going. Most people will never even move an idea from paper to reality so you are already ahead of the game even if you took longer than you wanted to.
This is also why I tell fellow entrepreneurs that whatever runway you give yourself in the business plan to hit revenue targets and then to become cash-flow positive most likely will have to be doubled once you actually start.
In our case, Random Media has been generating cash from digital book sales but we also expected investors to jump in much faster based on us proving that the concept had traction. Instead, it took us 12 months to secure capital when we were aiming for a maximum of six months.
With Keystone Augusta we are looking to a couple projects to invest in and one of them has been delayed by three months so far due to regulatory and investor issues. Once we have our own large capital base to invest however things should move much quicker.
The only worry is what happens when you can move too fast. Sometimes it is good that things take longer because it allows things to shake out and unveil issues you may not have considered in the original plan and timelines.
The lesson here is to set a timeline, try to stick to it, but don’t stress over delays because it is normal. Just make sure you are always moving forward and making progress, no matter how small.
