How I used an anti-environmental charity to force me to launch

You guys know the drill - come up with a cool idea, spend way too long in your development bunker, and then delay the launch until the "right" time.

All too aware of this, I knew I needed to do something after a few months of not shipping to the world.

Not wanting it to become "one of those ideas that I started but never finished", I needed to take some action. Something that would put a fire under my 🍑 to actually get this thing launched!

So - seeing as though I'm clearly my own worst enemy - maybe I can leverage that and use it to my advantage?

That's when I found Stickk. You might've heard of it. It's basically an accountability tool with a baked-in penalty system. You choose a charity you hate, set a goal with a deadline, and set a referee (someone you know to check you've actually accomplished your goal). I chose an anti-environmental charity that would donate $50 if I didn't reach the goal and set my fiancée as the referee (who promised me she would let the money go even if I didn't hit the goal!).

And... it worked! As soon as I set the goal, the deadline remained present in my mind. No way did I want to contribute to this lame charity. I cut back on all the features I wanted to build to launch with and took action consistently right up until the launch date.

Funnily enough, the MVP I launched isn't really "finished":

• There's no marketing site
• It's a dashboard tool (and you can't even add widgets to the dashboard yet).

But the important thing was getting it live and shipped!

Highly recommended if you're in the same boat and want to get something out there in the world!